


Define 'Human'

by Fionn_Sgeul



Series: Midnight Garden [5]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, BAMF Gwen Cooper, Cameos from the Garden Gnomes, Gen, Gwen Cooper & Ianto Jones Friendship, Gwen Cooper and Gwyneth the Maid are the same person, Gwen is older and wiser and may have gone slightly off her rocker at some point, Gwen isn't human
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-10 05:17:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7831915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fionn_Sgeul/pseuds/Fionn_Sgeul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What is humanity? What does it mean to lose it? </p>
<p>And what would make you give it up?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Intruder

**Author's Note:**

> You should probably read at least "Dancing in the Midnight Garden" first to fully understand what Gwen is and how she came to be a part of Torchwood. 
> 
> This one has elements both of the episode "Cyberwoman" and the Doctor Who novella "Made of Steel." Other than that, though, it's an original story.

It was the end of the day. Ianto had closed the Tourist Office and was spending his last hour at work down in the archives. He was nursing a cup of tea with honey for his sore throat and cataloguing something that looked like an oversized spatula but which Jack claimed was actually an alien ceremonial sceptre. Ianto was pretty sure Jack was making stuff up, but as Suzie had been fiddling with it for a whole three days and it hadn't tried to kill anyone yet, he decided to file it under "Harmless, Unknown Use."

As he was putting away the file in the filing cabinet, he noticed something odd. W for "Weapons" was up at the front, where D for "Dangerous" ought to be. Opening a lower drawer, he found D where W ought to have been. He scowled. If Jack had been mucking about with his bloody files again…

_Clunk, clatter-clatter._

Ianto went very, very still. No one else was down here — he _knew_ no one else was down here, unless…

"Gwen?" he called. "Ydych chi yno?"

Even when she was sneaking about, Gwen would reply if he addressed her in Welsh. He was greeted with nothing but silence. Probably not her, then.

Ianto stood slowly. Off among the shelves, something rattled as it fell to the floor. He hefted the sceptre — spatula, whatever it was. It was weighty; it would do for an improvised weapon. He moved forward as silently as he could, fervently wishing he hadn't announced his presence and his awareness of an intruder by calling out.

The noise had come from the back, near W for "Weapons." Ianto edged around the corner of shelves, wondering if he should be calling for backup. The aisle was deserted, though something glinted on the floor. Ianto checked all the other aisles and made sure he was alone before going to look.

A knife lay on the floor — an alien knife with a handle clearly never designed with humanoids in mind. Ianto plucked it up by the tag attached to it and placed it back on the shelf, right on the gap in the dust it had left. He scanned the shelf, comparing its contents to the catalogue in his near-eidetic memory. Nothing was missing, but he could see by the marks in the dust that they had moved.

Ianto raised his hand to the communicator in his ear. "Jack?"

He only had to wait a moment for the reply. "What's up, Ianto?"

"Unless Gwen is up to a whole new sort of trick, we've had an intruder in the archives."

Jack said nothing for a moment, then sighed. "I'd say that's impossible, but Gwen comes and goes like all our security is imaginary. Anything missing?"

"Not so far, but things have definitely been moved, and I haven't checked all the shelves yet."

"I'll be right down."

***

They went through every shelf and double-checked against files and records, just to be safe. Nothing was missing, but some of the objects on the shelves for D for "Dangerous" had moved as well. It made Jack's hair stand on end.

It was almost the sort of thing Gwen would do, except … she'd shown little interest in the archives and all their alien gadgets. And Ianto was right: if you heard her sneaking about and called her on it, she regarded that as a fair victory and would reveal herself. This wasn't her style.

"But if it isn't Gwen," said Ianto, "how could they get in without any of us noticing?"

Jack tilted his head to one side. "That's the question, isn't it? We better ask her when she gets in — whenever _that_ happens to be." Keeping track of Gwen was a challenge. She came and went as she pleased, day or night. Not that Jack had expected her to keep to regular office hours, or anything, but it would have been nice if she could at least keep in contact.

"Is Tosh still not having any luck with getting the comms to work for her, then?" asked Ianto.

"Nope. Anything we give her is fried within two days." 

Within days of Gwen's joining Torchwood, they'd learned that there was a reason that she didn't carry a mobile phone, and it wasn't because she was behind the times. The problem was that whenever she used a trick that channeled a lot of power, she generated a magnetic field powerful enough to fry most small electronics. Tosh had thrown herself at the challenge with enthusiasm and tested out three different modifications already.

"I think Tosh might be onto something, though," Jack continued as they climbed the stairs back to the main level. "She was all excited this morning, saying she's trying a different angle. Shielding it didn't work, because shielding it enough to survive Gwen also shielded it against the transmissions it's supposed to be picking up. So Tosh is trying to figure out a way to make it run off Gwen rather than get overloaded by her."

"Sooner the better," muttered Ianto. They needed a way to call Gwen when they needed her; they couldn't rely on her happening to show up at the right time by pure luck, as she had when the possessed Carys had been trying to escape.

"If she can get it to work, it should give Gwen's comm a spectacular battery life," said Jack with a grin. They came into the main room, now deserted — or apparently so, anyway. "GWEN?" Jack bellowed. "ARE YOU IN HERE? I NEED TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT SOMETHING IMPORTANT."

They both waited minute, but there was nothing. Jack sighed. "Oh well." He went over to the Mainframe computer and pulled up the CCTV coverage to check for any evidence of their intruder. "On the subject of Gwen," he said to Ianto, "What do you think of how she's fitting in?"

Ianto leaned against the desk and thought about it. "Well, we all knew she was never going to be normal — even Torchwood's idea of normal."

"But?" Jack prompted.

Ianto's face twitched with something between amusement and despair. "She's even worse with paperwork than you. And with respect, sir, that takes some doing."

Jack laughed. He had seen Gwen's attempts at paperwork. She didn't really seem to grasp the point of it and had real trouble sitting still long enough to get it done. What she did turn in tended to be decorated with doodles of ivy and flowers, Ogham runes, and passages of old Welsh poetry. Ianto always looked put-upon when he had to deal with it, but Jack had caught him copying the runes and poetry into a notebook and researching them with every appearance of fascination.

"And I don't know if you've noticed, sir, but she's been carving things into the walls," Ianto added.

Jack blinked, looking away from the computer. None of the cameras had registered anything other than the usual comings and goings. "Really? Missed that. What sort of things?"

Ianto gestured for him to follow and led Jack around the circumference of the room, pointing out various vertical lines of Ogham runes carved into brick or delicately chipped into tile. Some were on shadowy sections of wall, but most were on outward corners.

"Corners are where Ogham runes were designed to be used," said Ianto. "You don't have to draw the line in the centre, because the corner _is_ the line. The number of lines coming off the centre gives you the letter — one line to the right is a B, two to the left is a D, one on both sides is an A, et cetera. Ogham is historically more of an Irish thing than Welsh, but it has been used for Welsh is the past."

"So what do they say?" asked Jack, intrigued despite himself.

Ianto waved the notebook in which he'd been translating them. "Some pre-Christian blessings in Welsh — asking for the health and safety of those who dwell within, warding off evil, that sort of thing — a few lines of poetry, and one 'Gwen Cooper was here.'"

Jack rolled his eyes. "Of course." 

"And then there's her desk," Ianto went on.

"I saw that. Doesn't surprise me she'd want plants on her desk. _Does_ surprise me that they're surviving down here."

Ianto raised his eyebrows. "They're doing a bit more than that, sir. Come see."

Gwen had placed several plant pots and two garden gnomes (who, according to nametags affixed to their chests, were Frank and Hugh) on her desk and the floor around it. One plant had vivid purple flowers — an iris, maybe? Jack wasn't good with plants — and one had equally vivid maroon. The others were ivy-like and had wrapped tendrils around the legs of the desk and drooped themselves artistically around its edges … and, Jack saw as he followed Ianto's pointing finger, climbed about three feet up the wall that one side of Gwen's desk butted into.

"Huh," said Jack, staring. "It wasn't like that last night."

"When Gwen's around, they seem to grow at a rate of a few feet a day," said Ianto. "But they slow right down when she's away, so I'm guessing they feed off her presence, somehow."

"Huh," said Jack again, wondering if he should have a word with her before she turned their secret, underground base into a jungle. A thought occurred to him. "Was she here last night, then? I never heard her."

Ianto shrugged. "It was raining last night, so I expect so. She usually comes here when it rains."

Jack hadn't noticed that. Not for the first time, he blessed Ianto and his attention to detail. "Useful to know." He clapped Ianto on the shoulder. "Whenever she happens to blow in tomorrow, tell her I'd like a word with her. Unless of course she blows in tonight; then I'll tell her myself. Now, off home with you. I'll keep an eye on things here."

"Yes, sir."

***

Gwen breezed into the Tourist Office at about lunchtime the next day, looking pleased about something. She met Ianto's eye, grinned, and asked after him. "Sut wyt ti heddiw, Ianto?"

"Dw i'n iawn, diolch," he replied with a smile — which was a lie; his sore throat had grown worse and he was definitely coming down with something, but it was nothing serious. He'd tough it out.

The moment Gwen had found out that Ianto spoke Welsh, she'd started speaking it to him whenever it was just the two of them, and sometimes even when it wasn't. He'd stumbled at first, his Welsh rusty after his years in London, but he'd soon warmed to it. It was nice, speaking the language of his own people.

Gwen must have thought so too, because she talked to him a lot. Every time she came by, when she saw him she'd greet him and stop for a chat. She seemed … different when she spoke Welsh. Milder, friendlier, more approachable. She was more relaxed, more willing to talk about herself and her past. More … human.

Jack had said faeries took humans and turned them into more faeries. Ianto wondered if that had happened to Gwen. He wondered if speaking Welsh took her back to her youth, before she'd become a deadly spirit of nature.

Someday, maybe Ianto would dare to ask her. For now, though, he had more pressing things to talk to her about. He motioned Gwen close to tell her about what had happened the night before. Her frown grew deeper as his story unfolded.

"It wasn't me," she told him flatly, before he had a chance to ask. "And I'd be surprised if it was one of my folk. We're territorial, you see, and I've marked this place out clearly. They'd have to be looking for a fight to come in here." 

Ianto experienced a moment of enlightenment. "Oh, so that's what all the Ogham graffiti is about, I take it."

Gwen grinned her knife-edge grin. "You're a sharp one, you are." Her smile disappeared. "But this means that whoever got in is either a faerie who doesn't care about crossing me, or something else entirely. And I'm not sure which disturbs me more."

"We need to tell this to Jack," said Ianto, standing. "And he also wants a word with you on another matter which may or may not be connected to graffiti and invading plants." 

Gwen grinned wickedly, making Ianto suspect that Jack wasn't going to have any more success getting the plants to stop growing than he'd had in making the garden gnomes disappear. One of said gnomes now lived on Ianto's desk, wearing a nametag reading, "Hello, my name is _Madoc_."

Ianto had grown strangely fond of Madoc. But if he ever caught himself talking to the ceramic garden decoration, he was getting himself sectioned.

As Ianto moved away from his desk, a wave of dizziness washed over him. He paused and shut his eyes, willing it away. He had no time to be sick. Dragging himself out of bed that morning had been an ordeal, but he'd done it, and groomed himself even more impeccably than usual to hide any weakness. He would show no sign. He would keep going, and it would pass. He opened his eyes, inscrutable mask was back in place.

Gwen was standing between him and the hidden door, frowning. "Ianto, are you all right? You're very pale."

"Fine." When her frown only deepened and her eyes narrowed dangerously, Ianto amended that. "I've got a bit of a cold, I think. Nothing too troublesome."

Gwen was not reassured. She chewed her lip, then suddenly reached out and pressed her hand to his forehead. Ianto froze in surprise. He thought she was feeling his temperature until he noticed a light tingling washing through his body, making him shiver. Was this the faerie version of a full-body scan?

"Your immune system is inflamed," she informed him, eyebrows scrunched. "You should be resting."

"I'm _fine_ ," he said, trying to sound reassuring. His suit was suddenly feeling much too warm — from the stress of being put on the spot, he told himself. He closed his fists to resist the temptation to loosen his tie. It wouldn't help his case. 

Gwen stared at him for a long moment, evaluating, then sighed. "All right. Let's go talk to Jack. But…" she went stern, pointing a finger at him, "if this gets any worse…"

"It won't," Ianto assured her.

***

It did. Half an hour later, he was back at his desk and had removed his tie and jacket and unbuttoned his waistcoat. He was sweating and dizzy. He sat with his face down against the smooth wood, telling himself that it would pass.

He heard the secret door to the Hub open behind him and jerked upright. Gwen stalked through, followed by Jack. She planted her hands on the desk in front of him and glared. 

"It won't get any worse, you said. 'I'm fine,' you said."

Ianto realised that of course he would have been visible on the internal CCTV. And apparently, Gwen had been keeping an eye on him while she gave Jack her perspective on the incursion to the archives. Ianto wasn't used to people looking out for him, worrying about him. It was an odd feeling … especially considering that it was Gwen.

Jack pressed a hand to Ianto's forehead. "Definitely running a fever." He looked Ianto over, for once without even a hint of flirtation. "You should go home, get some rest. You're in no fit state to work today. Take a few days off to get better."

Ianto felt a stab of panic. He couldn't go home for a few days; Lisa needed him. "No, sir, please, it's not necessary. It's nothing serious — I'll be fine. I'll take it easy. Perhaps it would be best if I didn't prepare coffee or handle food, but a desk job is hardly a strain—"

They were both frowning at him. "Ianto, I think your job can survive without you for a few days," Jack drawled, "dearly though your coffee will be missed."

Ianto scowled at him. "I don't just make the coffee; I keep this place running." They bloody well deserved a few days without him. That would remind them how much he did. "And what about the archives? I'm the only one who knows everything that's down there!"

Gwen's hand on his shoulder called his attention back to her. "We'll manage, lad. It's much more important that you look after yourself."

"Maybe we better get Owen to take a look at him before he goes, just in case," said Jack. "Then, three days off, Ianto, more if you aren't better by then."

"But … but…"

His protests went unheeded, especially after he tried to stand up and staggered under another wave of dizziness. He was hustled off to Owen, who examined him with much more of a bedside manner than Ianto would have credited him. He was diagnosed with the flu in short order. And that's when the real trouble started.

Owen was frowning at his test results. "When was the last time you ate?"

Ianto hesitated. "Ah … I didn't eat anything this morning; I wasn't feeling well. So … the Chinese food last night?"

Owen scowled at him. "I saw you. You barely picked at it. What about before that?"

Ianto thought back. "I had a muffin for breakfast," he offered.

Owen's scowl deepened. "And that wasn't just because you were ill, was it? That's a normal day for you."

Ianto opened his mouth to deny it, but he caught sight of Gwen, standing behind Owen with her arms crossed and a stern glare on her face. She, Ianto felt suddenly sure, would know if he lied. He looked down at the floor in silent admission.

Owen stared at him. "This hasn't just come on you by chance, has it? You've worn yourself out. When was the last time you got a full night's sleep?"

Ianto couldn't hold back a wince. Sleep had been a difficult, slippery thing ever since Canary Wharf. "Slept well last night," he mumbled.

"Yeah, because you were sick and exhausted," Owen pointed out. "How often do you get a proper night's sleep — seven hours plus?"

Again, Ianto let his non-answer speak for him and stared at the floor.

Owen sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I'm going to take that as never. How often do you get five or six hours?"

"Few times a week."

"And how often do you get four or less?"

Ianto cringed and ducked his head.

"I'm going to take that as most of the time," said Owen grimly. "What the hell, Ianto? I know our job isn't exactly good for a healthy lifestyle, but what are you doing, trying to work yourself to death? You're underweight, and it's no wonder you've come down with the flu!"

"How long does it take to get over the flu?" Jack asked Owen.

Owen shrugged. "Temperature should go down within forty-eight hours, and the worst of the other symptoms usually last about five days. About ten days for full recovery, though."

Jack nodded slowly. "All right then, we'll start with five days' leave, and add more if needed."

Ianto's head shot up. "But, sir—"

"What've you got against taking time off?" demanded Jack. "We aren't about to let anybody mess up your filing system or raid the archives, and your job isn't going to disappear if you're gone for a bit. Go home, Ianto, and take care of yourself."

Ianto deflated, seeing that he wasn't going to win this argument. But he couldn't be away for five days, so he'd just have to sneak back in after dark. 

He could do that.


	2. Can't Fix Everything, But Damn It We're Gonna Try

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baby-sitting a lot of danger-prone mortals turns out to require healing skills that are a bit outside Gwen's wheelhouse.

To Ianto's surprise, Gwen insisted on driving him home — which turned out to be several kinds of scary because she seemed a trifle sketchy on the controls and the rules of the road. Ianto made a mental note to insist someone give her a refresher course as soon as he was back on the job. He probably would have been safer driving himself home, despite how sick and unsteady he was. 

And then once they got there, she followed him into his apartment. Gwen made a disapproving noise at the bareness of it. "You haven't got any plants."

Ianto's lip twitched as he headed for the bathroom. "I'm hardly ever here. They'd die."

"You could get some hardy ones that only need water once a week," she insisted from the kitchen. Ianto heard the fridge opening and another, louder noise of disapproval. "You've got hardly anything in here!"

Ianto didn't reply, too busy stripping off his waistcoat and unbuttoning his shirt in attempt to relieve his fever. He splashed cold water on his face and focussed on breathing deep and steady.

A cool hand pressed against his forehead, and suddenly the heat in him dissipated. He made a small noise of relief. Gwen's hands on his shoulders guided him out of the bathroom and over onto the couch. Around him, she arrayed a big, fluffy blanket, the folded wad of his pajamas, the remote control, a cup of tea, and a bowl of water with a cloth soaking in it.

"Right," she said, jingling his keys in her hand. "I am going to the shops for groceries. _You_ are going to stay here and look after yourself while I buy food. I can do that now," she added brightly, proud. "I've got money!"

"You shouldn't be spending it on me," he protested.

She looked at him as if this were a strange thing to say. "What on earth else am I going to do with it? But the point is…" she pointed an accusing finger at him, "…you have not been taking care of yourself. This means that you're just going to have to shut up and put up with somebody else taking care of you for a bit. Got it?"

Ianto blinked at her, thrown by the weirdness that was this mischief-making trickster taking responsibility for him. "Er, got it."

"Good." She patted his shoulder on her way by. "Back soon."

"Don't crash my car!" he called after her.

"Of course I won't!"

"And don't get pulled over. Think of the paperwork!"

"Yeah, yeah…"

***

Gwen came back to the sparse little apartment with two bags of groceries and a sense of achievement. She could do this ordinary-person thing, driving around in a car and buying things and making innocuous small talk. She hadn't put so much as a scratch on the car, and the check-out lady had only looked at her strangely once for a comment about how the trees thought it would rain tonight. Apparently mortals were still useless at the language of trees. Gwen had thought they'd have figured it out by now.

She'd only been fifteen minutes, and young Ianto was still where she'd left him, curled up on the couch. He was wringing the wet cloth between his hands and looked up sharply when she came in. His face was pale and anxious. Was that just because he was ill? Gwen wasn't used to illness. There wasn't much that could sicken a faerie. But she knew mortals died of it all the time.

The thought upset her. Ianto was much too young to die, and she'd put quite a lot of effort into saving his life not even a month ago. This, as far as she was concerned, meant that he was basically Hers now. But she wasn't going to mention that. Mortals got all touchy about the possessive urges of faeries.

"I got the makings for soup," she announced, swanning over to the counter and unloading her burdens. She pointed a stern finger. "You either do soup from scratch, or you don't do it at all. None of this canned nonsense. Do you like cream of mushroom?"

"Sure," said Ianto weakly. 

Gwen was in front of him in a moment, frowning and holding a hand to his forehead. She did a quick scan of his systems. His condition didn't seem to have deteriorated during her absence. So why did he sound so much worse? She looked him over. He was avoiding looking at her and was worrying his lip.

Oh, crap. It was _emotional_.

She planted her hands on her hips. "All right, what's wrong?"

"It's…" He seemed to flounder. "You don't need to look after me; I can take care of myself. I'm a grown man."

Gwen rolled her eyes so hard they hurt. Oh, for the love of Mother Nature, not _pride_. Bloody mortals and their pride, especially the males. "Of course you can," she said with as much patience as she could muster. "And I could leave you to suffer through this on your own. Or: you could let me hang around and boost your immune system and generally cut your recovery time in half."

That got his attention. He blinked up at her and then visibly deflated with a deep sigh. "Oh, all right then. Cream of mushroom sounds fine."

***

Since he'd met Gwen, Ianto had seen several different sides of her. Most often, she was a playful trickster with a knife-edged smile — friendly enough, but with a whiff of danger running under the surface. But the night she'd saved his life, he'd had a brief look at a deadly, ancient creature who would throw herself into harm's way for the sake of a stranger. Then that side had been replaced, barely a minute later, by an unexpected kindness as she'd gently healed his hurts and wiped his blood away.

And now he was seeing a side he'd never suspected: a motherly, fussing side, bordering on domestic. She made him soup, watched James Bond films with him, and eased his fever and chills every fifteen minutes or so just by laying a hand on his head and using her control of temperature. By the time evening rolled around, Ianto wasn't feeling all that bad — heavy and sleepy, definitely not well, but not feverish or miserable. If only he could get rid of Gwen for a while, sneaking back into the Hub might not be so awful.

"You're not intending to stay the night, are you?" he asked. "Only I don't have a spare bed, and the sofa isn't much for sleeping on."

She shrugged. "I was intending to get you settled and then wander off. I have a few things to do tonight."

Ianto nodded, relieved. That was ideal.

Gwen dug into her pocket and pulled out a comm. "Tosh gave me another one of these, and she thinks there's a chance this one might actually work, but all the same, I'm going to avoid doing anything that might interfere with it tonight. That way, if your fever comes back, you can call me." She pointed sternly at him. "And _do_ call me if it comes back. None of this silly pride and 'oh, I can handle it on my own' stuff. If you let your immune response get out of hand again, I'm going to have to spend another few hours reining it back in. Better to just call me at the start."

Ianto smiled wryly. "Yes ma'am."

***

She left him not long after dark, but Ianto waited until midnight to go back to the Hub. He was hoping Jack would be asleep, or at least not paying any attention to CCTV cameras.

He parked his car out of sight and walked the rest of the way to the Tourist Office. By the time he got there, he was sweating and his breath was wheezing softly. All right, he was prepared to admit it: this was definitely not good for his health. But he had a duty to fulfill. After a brief stop at his computer in the little room off the Tourist Office, he slipped quickly and quietly through the secret door and into the lift.

The biggest obstacle to get by was the noisy, rolling gear-door. But fortunately, Ianto had previously hacked into its workings and installed a little program that would let him silence its alerts and flashing lights for a bit. Having activated the program from his computer, all he had to worry about was the noise of the door itself.

The door rolled aside, and he was confronted with the dark, silent Hub. He stepped inside and hesitated, listening intently. No sign of Jack. He headed for the corridor leading to the basement, glad he'd thought to wear quiet, rubber-soled trainers.

Down the corridor, he turned the corner that led to the stairs and nearly had a heart-attack when he got a face-full of leaves. He backed up a hasty step. Standing before him was a large, leafy plant that had definitely never been there before. He gave it a befuddled look. It was growing out of a big, purple pot, and next to it stood a gnome with a nametag reading, 'Hello, my name is _Earl_.' Shaking his head at Earl and the plant, Ianto went around them and headed for the stairs.

"And where do you think you're off to?"

Ianto's heart stopped, then beat double-time to catch up. It wasn't Jack; it was Gwen. She was leaning against the wall in a patch of shadow, arms crossed, eyes with just a touch of unnatural gleam. 

Bloody typical. He'd managed to avoid Jack only to walk right in on Gwen sneaking plants into the Hub.

Ianto opened his mouth, but his mind was uselessly blank. "I… I…"

Gwen stepped out of the shadows and came closer. She did not look pleased. "Well? _Where are you going?_ "

He was trapped. What could he say? "I had to," he mumbled miserably, pitching against the wall. He was dizzy again. "She'll die without me."

"Die? Who'll die?" asked Gwen. She set her face in a glare. "Show me."

Ianto took a shuddering breath and started toward the basement. His mouth was dry, his heart pounding. Gwen could be kind, but she could also be terrible. He'd thought of telling her before — thought that surely, if anyone could help Lisa, Gwen could. But she had no reason to help. He had nothing to offer in return. If she got angry… If she decided Lisa was an abomination… Even if all she did was tell Jack…

He'd just have to pray she decided to be kind.

***

Gwen followed Ianto down dark hallways and stairs. His posture was loose, slumped, and defeated, a sharp contrast to his usual measured elegance. He trailed one hand along the wall for balance, so he must be dizzy. He was too ill for this. What on earth — or maybe who — was so important to drag him out of bed and back to the Hub, in secret, in the middle of the night?

Then Ianto unlocked a pair of big, heavy wooden doors, and she saw exactly what.

A young woman lay, asleep or unconscious, in some great, mechanised cradle. Her dark flesh was run through with webs of steel, her head encased in metal with funny, familiar tubes coming out the sides.

Gwen sucked in a sharp, horrified breath when she recognised the design of a Cyberman.

She'd seen them before, once back in Victorian England before she'd met the Doctor, once in the late twentieth century, and once only a few months ago, when they'd been all over the world. She'd seen the destruction they could cause, and she knew how to kill them.

But she'd never seen someone partway between Cyberman and human before.

"She's my girlfriend, Lisa Hallett," said Ianto quietly. He was staring at the woman with a kind of blank horror in his eyes. "We both worked at Torchwood One in London, and we were at Canary Wharf. The Cybermen — towards the end of the battle, they started dragging people off — to make more Cybermen, or killing them if they were 'incompatible.'" He took a shaky breath. "I hid, managed to avoid them. And then, when they started to clear out, I went looking for Lisa." His voice broke. "They'd taken her, started converting her, but she was still herself — still human. I got her out, hid her. I've been looking for a cure ever since."

Gwen shot him a horrified look. No wonder the kid couldn't sleep.

She spoke very softly. "Do you have any idea how dangerous—" She cut herself off. He'd been at Canary Wharf. He had to know. "You brought a _Cyberman_ into the Hub?"

"She's not — she isn't." His voice was thick with tears now. "She's still human; she knows me, talks to me. And she remembers everything." He took a shuddering breath and wiped tears away. "And she isn't a danger to anyone. She can't even breathe on her own."

As far as Gwen was concerned, there was no universe where anything even vaguely Cyber wasn't dangerous. She had seen many monsters in her time, but nothing offended her as much as Cybermen. She was a creature of nature — of life and death and everything in between. The Cybermen were a cruel perversion of all that. No death, and no life either. You couldn't possibly get further away from faeries — from their passion and joy, their whimsy and wildness, their fury and vengeance.

And now here was some poor girl stuck between nature and machine. What the hell was Gwen meant to do with that?

Ianto spoke hoarsely. "Can you—" He cut himself off. "I shouldn't ask. I owe you too much already."

"You do," she agreed darkly. "And a faerie is a dangerous person to owe debts to." She saw his adam's apple bob as he swallowed hard. She turned to look at him fully, taking in every detail. Bleak despair filled his face as he stared at the floor, tears running down his cheeks.

Gwen had always been a bleeding heart, even before the Doctor.

"The thing about faeries and debts, though," she said mildly, "is that they have to be named to count."

Ianto's head came up, frowning. When Gwen didn't elaborate, he asked, "What do you mean?"

Gwen crossed her arms. "If a faerie does you a favour, whether by your request or otherwise, you are only bound to repay the debt if it is named — basically if the faerie says, 'You owe me for this.' If the faerie says no such thing, then the debt is unnamed, and it is entirely up to the debtor whether or how the debt is paid. There are few circumstances where an unnamed debt could be called in."

She didn't mention that this — asking another, very large favour while the original remained unpaid — was one of those circumstances. Ianto didn't need to know that she could lay claim to his soul for this.

"Since I helped you spontaneously and didn't name the debt, I can't hold you to account for it. So, technically, we're starting fresh here." She stared at him, dark and hard. "But if you ask me to do this, I will be naming the debt. And I can't even guarantee that there's anything I can do."

Ianto shut his eyes and took a deep breath. "Please, just try. I'd do anything."

Gwen winced. Dear Mother Nature, the lad was such a neophyte. You should never give a faerie free rein with a line like "I'd do anything." Many faeries would ask for something dreadful just because you'd left them the opening. But it wasn't as if the boy weren't clever, he just … trusted her.

Damn it. Now she couldn't say no.

She sighed deeply and spoke in a near-whisper. "First, there's something you must understand. If the Cyber programming takes over, if she attacks anyone…" Gwen set her jaw and glared. "She will be beyond my help. And while I don't know your Lisa, I know that I'd certainly rather be dead than turn into … that."

It was the gentlest way she could think of to tell him she'd kill his girlfriend. He accepted it about as well as she could have expected: with quiet denial, shaking his head.

"It hasn't taken over," he insisted. "She wouldn't hurt anyone."

Gwen would judge that for herself, thanks. And not through the eyes of a young man who was clearly viewing Lisa Hallett through the prism of love.

Slowly, carefully, Gwen approached the young woman in her metal cradle. She drew closer, reminding herself that much as they disturbed her, Cybermen weren't hard to kill. Their systems ran on cybernetic relays. A powerful enough jolt of energy would overload and burn them out — and often make the head explode. Gwen had enjoyed that in the past. She wouldn't if it were Lisa.

Ianto came up beside her and gently woke Lisa with a hand on her forehead. "Lisa, wake up, sweetheart. I've brought someone to see you."

She opened her eyes and blinked against the light. Gwen could tell just from the way her breath was hissing through her teeth that she was in pain — a lot of pain. Lisa favoured Ianto with a weak smile.

"You're late," she chided him gently.

He winced. "Sorry. I'm so sorry. I couldn't make it any earlier. You'll need your next dose." He moved back and gestured to Gwen. "This is Gwen. She's agreed to try to help."

"No promises," said Gwen, coming close and looking Lisa in the eye. "Might not be anything I can do. But I'll try."

"Thank you," Lisa gasped softly. "Ianto told me about you. He said you're kind."

Gwen cocked an eyebrow at the young man in question. "I'm a lot of things. But I guess kind is one of them."

Ianto came back to the metal cradle with a syringe. He stumbled and leaned against the side for a moment.

"Ianto?" asked Lisa with what sounded to Gwen like real concern. "What's wrong?"

"He's ill," Gwen said bluntly. "'Flu — fever, dizziness, aches and pains, the works. He shouldn't even be out of bed." She watched Lisa to see how she would react, alert for any sign of the 'Flesh Is Weakness' Cyberman credo.

Lisa fixed Ianto with a glare, making him wince. "I've told you, you're pushing yourself too hard. Your body can only take so much."

"I'll be fine," Ianto protested, shooting the contents of the syringe into a bag for an IV. Gwen assumed it was pain medication. "Gwen's looking after me."

Lisa turned to Gwen. "Thank you. Someone's got to look out for this one, since he refuses to do it himself."

To her surprise, Gwen found a genuine smile to give the girl. Ianto was right: Lisa Hallett was still in there. Any Cyber programming was running under the surface — the "your body can only take so much" comment worried Gwen a bit, but it could be nothing. She hoped it was nothing.

"I'm going to need to examine you," she told Lisa. "All you'll feel is a little tingling."

"Okay."

Gwen laid her hand on Lisa's forehead and shut her eyes. Her mind slid into Lisa's system.

She'd never seen anything like it. It was terrible. Wires ran alongside blood vessels, metal was grafted onto bone, her internal organs barely had room to function. And the brain — dear, sweet Mother Nature, the _brain_. All the major pathways were intact, the memory and reason centres in order. But all around the edges was a sort of … Cybernetic net. It wrapped the brain up, little tendrils hanging off, as if waiting for something to connect to. This, Gwen supposed, was how the brain survived being transplanted into Cyber body.

But why take over the body when all you wanted was the brain? Was this a different conversion process than the usual? Gwen knew that the Cybermen had been fighting the Daleks (which would have been a dream come true if Earth hadn't been the battleground; how she would have liked to watch them annihilate each other…). Maybe they'd got desperate, run low on resources, and started converting pre-existing bodies rather than building new ones?

It didn't really matter. The point was that Lisa's brain had been invaded. Gwen could feel the Cybernetic net pushing its way inward, creeping in amongst the synapses and influencing them.

It was one of the most horrible, sickening things Gwen had ever seen.

She broke contact and staggered back a pace. She buried her face in her hands, took and deep breath, and pushed her hands back into her hair, pulling it away from her face.

"What is it?" asked Ianto, tense. "How bad is it?"

Gwen shut her eyes and swallowed before answering. "It's not good. There are bits of metal and wiring all through her body, her bones and organs. But I could deal with that. The real problem is the brain."

"Brain?" repeated Lisa in a small, scared voice.

"The conversion isn't totally stopped," Gwen told her. "The stuff that Cybermen put into your brain seems to have a mind of its own, like some sort of virus. It's creeping in, very slowly, trying to reprogram you. If we leave things as they are … sooner or later, you'll become like them."

Lisa shut her eyes and took deep, steadying breaths. Ianto looked like he'd been slapped. He leaned heavily against Lisa's cradle.

"I have gaps, sometimes," whispered Lisa. "Time when Ianto's been to visit me, but I can't remember it."

"You say strange things sometimes," said Ianto, staring into the middle distance, "things that don't make sense. Then suddenly you're back to normal and don't even remember what you were talking about."

"That's the programming," said Gwen, "trying to get control. I don't know how long we've got before it becomes dangerous."

Ianto made a wounded noise. Lisa reached up and grabbed his hand, clutching it between both hers. "Isn't there anything you can do?" asked Ianto. "Get rid of it — burn it out, like you did with Carys?"

"That was different. That invasion was new, not properly integrated into the body's systems. It was just passing through; it hadn't rooted itself in, _attached_ itself like this has." Gwen waved her hands in frustration. "The brain is an intensely complicated, delicate thing, and I'm not even _close_ to an expert. I'm average, as healers go. I couldn't burn out the invasion without burning out a good portion of the brain, as well."

Ianto sagged. Lisa squeezed her eyes shut, a tear escaping from beneath the lid. They clung to each other, two kids, barely twenty-five, if that.

Damn it. In for a penny…

"But … I know someone who maybe could." They both looked up at her, a spark of hope in their eyes. "Nobody better for healing in Wales. And as luck would have it, he owes me a favour." She sighed. "Only trouble is I'll have to find him first. I'm pretty sure he's in the country, but beyond that…" She shook her head. "I can put out the word tonight, let the community know I need him. If we're lucky, we'll hear back from him in a few days. I still can't give you any guarantees, but if anyone can help…"

Lisa took a shuddering breath and patted Ianto on the arm. "Get over there and hug her for me."

Ianto gave a wet, hoarse laugh and pushed himself off the cradle. He wrapped his arms around Gwen and went quietly to pieces on her shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I draw my faeries off loads of old Scottish and Irish Gaelic legends, so it can be hard for me to remember what I've got from where, but I'm pretty sure the naming-debts thing is something I made up. : )


	3. Counter Espionage (This May Have Been a Bad Idea)

Tosh was distracted from wondering when the lovely, blooming orchid on her desk had appeared by an alert going off on her computer screen. "Jack," she called. "We have a problem."

"What's up?"

"See for yourself."

He came and looked over her shoulder at the readings running across her screen, shoving aside a gnome ('Hello, my name is _Marty_ ') so he could lean on her desk.

"It's the sensors I put in the archive after the incident," said Tosh. "They picked up a very weird signal, and then … nothing."

"Short-range jamming signal," said Jack, looking at the blank after the initial spike on the monitor, the fuzz on the video feed. "They don't want to be observed. And that—" he pointed at the initial spike, "—that could be an incoming teleport." He straightened. "Owen! Suzie!" he shouted. "Get your guns — we've got intruders in the archives. Come on, Tosh."

They charged down the stairs, Jack in the lead. Damn it, he wished Gwen were here, but she'd hardly been around the last few days, since Ianto got sick. Faeries, apparently, weren't used to sickness, and Jack was pretty sure Gwen was freaking out over it on the inside.

They reached the archives. Jack nudged the door open with his gun and crept in, heart pounding and every sense on high alert. The sprawling room was dark and silent. A few sharp gestures to the others had Suzie and Owen heading for the start of the alphabet while Jack and Tosh went to the end.

They moved silently along the shelves, pointing their guns down each aisle as they came to it. Nothing moved in the gloom. Jack made sure he got to the W section first, but it was deserted.

"Anything?" he called to Owen and Suzie.

"Nothing," replied Suzie.

Jack blew out a breath. "Right, start checking to see if anything's moved or missing."

They were at it for hours. Ianto's records were detailed and assiduous, and he'd labeled everything he'd catalogued. But Torchwood Three's archives dated back more than a hundred years, and Ianto had had plenty of other duties since he'd started work there. He hadn't had time to get through everything yet. In other words, it was hard to be sure whether anything was missing. Jack flipped through file folders and wished Ianto were here. Ianto and the archives were a bit like a dragon and its hoard: he seemed to know instantly if anything was disturbed or removed.

"There's a gap in the dust here," called Owen, "in E for 'Electronics, Alien.'"

Jack stuffed the folder on D for "Dangerous" back and pulled out E.

"There might be something missing over here, too," said Suzie from O for "Ornaments." "It's really small, though, so I can't be sure."

Jack brought the file for E over to the shelf and started comparing contents. "We've got to get Ianto in here; he's got the entire collection stored in his head. When's he due back?" he asked Owen.

"Not for another two days," said Owen. "But Gwen told me this morning that she's managed to accelerate his recovery and he's already well over the worst of it, so we could probably get him in tomorrow if we need to."

"I think we need to," said Jack grimly. "We need to know what they've taken before we can work out what they might need it for. Tosh, get working on that signal. We need to track that teleport."

***

When Ianto walked into the Hub, the first thing he noticed was the big flowering shrub slap bang in the middle. It was some sort of wild rose, unless he was mistaken, blooming cheerfully near their sapling. Which had grown about two feet while he'd been gone and now had a little patch of moss around its base.

He blinked at it and looked around. Tosh had a blue orchid on her desk. Owen had a big, thriving aloe vera, and Suzie had something with pretty little purple flowers that Ianto suspected was deadly nightshade. And the ivy on Gwen's desk now extended about ten feet up the tile wall and five feet in either direction.

A soft _wheeeeee_ announced the arrival of the motorised garden gnome, now wearing a nametag reading, "Hello, my name is _Gobstopper_." Gobstopper did a circle around Ianto and then whizzed off again. Ianto rolled his eyes and looked around for Gwen, but it was Suzie who was holding the remote control and grinning. Right, of course — Gwen was off looking for her friend to help Lisa.

"Bloody place is starting to look like a garden," complained Owen, coming over to Ianto. "If she's trying to turn it into a home for her damn gnomes…" He shook his head. "Come on — I've got to give you a check-up."

Ianto passed the check-up. He still had a bit of a dry cough and was a little lethargic, but his recovery was nearly complete. Owen was amazed. Ianto hardly noticed, too distracted by a planter sprouting fluffy, pale-green leaves.

"Is that sage?"

"Yep," said Owen. "Appeared mysteriously yesterday morning. One of the most useful medicinal plants in the world, sage. And this morning I found a bunch of feverfew." He pointed to a plant Ianto hadn't noticed over on a table. It had little yellow and white flowers. "Feverfew is one of the best natural pain relievers."

"Considerate," said Ianto. "I couldn't help but notice that there was nightshade on Suzie's desk. Poisonous, isn't it?"

"Yeah, she was delighted. Don't let her anywhere near our coffee. Gwen sure knows how to choose 'em."

Jack strode into the room. "Ianto! Cleared for duty?"

"Just this minute," said Owen.

"Great. We need you in the archives. Come on."

***

"Things are definitely missing," said Ianto, striding through the shelves. "But nothing big — nothing significant or dangerous. Just … odds and ends. Bits of electronics, gems, a couple of magnets…"

"Make a list," said Jack. "It might give us a clue. Tosh," he called over the comms. "Any progress?"

"Not much," Tosh responded from her computer upstairs. "I've got a general direction of the transmission, but I need more readings to triangulate."

"We'll set up more sensors," said Jack. "They might come back for more. And I think we'd better have a guard down here from now until we catch whoever this is. Does anyone know where Gwen is?"

"She said she needed to track down an old friend of hers," said Ianto, hoping very much that Jack wouldn't take an interest in why.

"Damn it," growled Jack, frustration reaching boiling point. "Where the hell is she when we need her? Tosh, do we still not have comms working for her?"

"I'm afraid not," groaned Tosh. "I gave her a new design on Wednesday, and it worked for three days, but then she overloaded it and it went _pfft!_ "

Jack scrubbed a hand through his hair and glared around at the archives. "Right. Suzie! First shift. Then Tosh, then Owen, and I'll take over for the night."

"I could help," said Ianto, not caring for being left out of the rota when the archives were his responsibility, really.

"You're still recovering," said Jack. "Last thing I want is to set you back — I don't fancy getting back on Gwen's bad side!" A flicker of his usual grin showed. "Besides, you've already got the most important job. Get me that list!"

***

Tosh was still struggling to track the origin of the teleport when Gwen blew in. Tosh's mind was jerked away from her task. She had never seen Gwen look more faerie. Her eyes gleamed gold. She was windblown and disheveled, with little bits of shadow and darkness clinging to her like spider-webs. Her hair had feathers and beads tied into it, and Tosh could see leaves and little tendrils of vine actually growing out of her skin. She could have walked straight out of a storybook.

"Where the hell have you been?" asked Jack, gesturing with a cup of coffee.

"In the Forest," she said, her voice strange and whispery. "I needed to find an old friend of mine." She cleared her throat, voice becoming normal. "What's going on?"

"We've been invaded," said Jack shortly. "Somebody or something got into the archives — again — and made off with a bunch of stuff. And the list of objects taken is making me nervous."

Tosh looked at him sharply. "Have you worked out what they're after?"

"Can't be sure," said Jack, slapping the list of stolen items on her desk. "But it looks like they might be trying to build something channelling Raizon energy. A couple of the bits they took were from an old Raizon Cannon. Pretty busted up, but an expert might be able to get some working parts out of them."

"And a Raizon Cannon," said Gwen, plucking leaves off her skin and self-consciously smoothing herself into something more human-looking, "what does that do?"

"Blows stuff up, mostly," said Jack, sipping his coffee. "With a good enough power source, you could level a city block. Which means we need to find these guys, and fast."

"I might have a lead to that end," said Tosh, typing. "The signal has been hellish to triangulate — I've had to hack into a system of UNIT sensors for more data — but it _looks_ like it's coming from here." She turned her screen so Gwen and Jack could see. They both frowned.

"What is it?" called Suzie from her desk, popping to her feet.

"Looks like it's a UNIT warehouse near Bristol," said Jack.

" _UNIT_ is doing this?" said Suzie incredulously.

"No, it says here the warehouse is disused, slated for decommissioning," said Tosh. "More likely someone else has moved in and taken over."

"Tosh is right," said Jack. "Breaking into another organisation's archives and running off with their property is more Torchwood's style than UNIT's. UNIT does things it by the book." He looked Tosh hard in the eye. "How sure are you that this is where it's coming from?"

"Hold on," said Tosh. "I'm still cross-referencing with readings from the day when Ianto thinks they first came here. If they match…" The readings popped up on the screen. "Got it," she said with a hint of triumph. "That's the place."

Jack drained his coffee in one go and set down the mug on the nearest surface. "All right, people, let's move out. Suzie, get Owen out of the archives; this is more important than guard duty. Tosh, get me on the phone to UNIT. We need access to this place. Ianto!" he called up to the upper level. Ianto's head popped over the railing. "You're with us this time; we'll need you to identify our stolen property." 

"Yes, sir."

Tosh was still trying to get a hold of UNIT when they arrived at the SUV. Owen went to the driver's door and then stopped. "We don't have enough seats."

"Don't worry about that," said Gwen. "I'll ride in the back. If we get into an accident, I can recover from injuries much faster than any of you." She climbed into the back seat and squeezed her way into the back. Jack shrugged and took the passenger seat, leaving the rest of them to crowd into the back. Owen drove off into the gathering dusk.

***

The drive to Bristol was largely taken up with Jack's frustrating call to UNIT. They were not keen to allow Torchwood onto their turf, even an old, disused warehouse. And they weren't about to take Torchwood's word that something dangerous had gone to ground in their building. The man on the phone — Major Probert, stationed in Bristol and therefore in charge of the warehouse — was demanding a meeting. Jack agreed with a bad grace. He ended the call.

"I've got to go and meet with the guy in charge of UNIT's local base. I'll try to get us official access. But I want the rest of you to go on ahead to the warehouse. Scout it, watch it." He turned around in his seat to look at their faerie, who was leaning against the back of the rear seat between Ianto and Suzie. "Gwen, you can get in unseen?"

"Easily," she said with a dismissive sniff.

"Great. Get in there. And if you can get the others in unseen — and unrecorded — do it. They'll have a better idea of what we're looking for."

"Right," said Gwen, eyes glinting.

"And _be careful_ ," stressed Jack. "We have no idea what these things are. They can teleport and know how to use Raizon energy, so they're technologically advanced and probably dangerous. They might just be using our stuff to try to repair a damaged spacecraft and go home, or they might be building a weapon. Remember they can teleport — watch your backs every minute as soon as you even get close to that place." He scowled unhappily as he settled back into his seat. "If we could risk getting into a conflict with UNIT, I'd be right there with you, but they've had it in for us since Canary Wharf. The last thing we need is them making a serious effort to shut us down. Not that they _could_ ," he added with a cocky smirk. "But it would be annoying as hell to have them try."

"I'm all for avoiding that," said Tosh with a shudder. Gwen shot her a curious look.

"So." Jack checked his watch. "You'll have to drop me off at the UNIT base in Bristol before going on to the warehouse. And because you folks have a history, I'm going to say it one more time: if you find anything dangerous, get out of there and call me."

"You got it, boss," said Owen. Jack looked at him and resisted the temptation to roll his eyes. Yeah, like that was ever going to happen.

***

As soon as they dropped Jack off, Suzie stole his seat and Gwen climbed over the back seat to take Suzie's.

"Put on your safety belt," Ianto told her.

Gwen glared at him. "I don't need it."

He stared back implacably. "Just because you're a faerie doesn't mean you can't have your neck broken. That would be inconvenient. And anyway, it's the law. You get a fine if you're caught without it."

"Since when has any faerie cared about the law?" she grumbled, but she fastened the belt. Easier than being nagged, probably.

At least the new seat afforded her a better view out the window as they approached the warehouse. It was a great, hulking, square building, dark against the starry night sky. Gwen immediately began looking for a point of entry, but it was too dark and too far away for even her sharp eyes.

Owen parked them in the lot of the next building over, his lights put out, and the all climbed out to look around. The local flora was having a go at reclaiming the area. Grass and weeds pushed up through cracks, and a nice big bush screened them from view of the warehouse. Suzie went around the bush and looked at their target through a fancy set of binoculars. 

"What do you think, Gwen?" she asked, offering her the binoculars. Gwen took them and peered through experimentally. They were night-vision goggles, she realised. Neat. She could see the building much better.

"The upper windows of warehouses don't generally open, which nixes my usual method for getting into other people's buildings," she said. "I need a small, insignificant side door… Aha." She zoomed in on a likely target. "That'll do."

"How are you with locks?" asked Suzie, pulling something out of the bag slung over her shoulder. "Because this little gadget can get you through any lock in under forty-five seconds, even the ones on the Hub."

Gwen took it and gave it and appreciative look. "Nice. I'm not a bad scath-lock, but sometimes the more complex ones defeat me. And I wouldn't want to resort to blowing them apart or melting them here."

"Scath-lock?" repeated Tosh.

"Oh, uh — faerie term for a lock-breaker," said Gwen. "To scath means to hurt; it's related to scathing and unscathed." She stuck the high-tech lock-pick in her pocket, zipped up her jacket, and pulled out a tie to put her hair back. Oh, right, she still had the feathers and beads in it. Oh well — she wasn't trying to blend in with a crowd here.

"Take these with you, too," said Tosh, holding out yet another comm and two other devices Gwen couldn't identify. Tosh smiled ruefully. "I've taken another shot at it. It should be able to run off you so long as you don't do anything too extreme, and we need to be able to communicate tonight."

Gwen stuck it in her ear. "I'll keep it alive as long as possible," she promised. "But what are these?"

"Transmitters," said Tosh. "If you come up against a security system, sticking one of these into it will let me hack in and cover your tracks — loop videos, stop alarms from going off, and so forth."

Gwen marveled at the little scraps of plastic, wire, and metal. All these ingenious devices that she couldn't use because she killed them if she held them for too long. Oh well, at least she had them this time. She grinned. "Let's do this thing!"

***

Gwen approached the door invisibly, scanning constantly. The windows were all dark. A breeze stirred the weeds in the pavement around her, but other than that nothing moved. It seemed deserted. She shut her eyes and reached out with her other senses, feeling for any concentration of energy nearby. Was that something inside the warehouse? She couldn't be sure.

"Where are you?" asked Tosh's voice in her ear.

"About two yards from the door," murmured Gwen. She'd never managed to switch over to metric. She was more than three-hundred years old, so sue her.

"Bloody creepy," she heard Owen mutter to himself, probably forgetting his comm was open. She wondered whether he meant her or the warehouse.

"Can you see any cameras?" asked Tosh.

Gwen scanned the wall. The tell-tale outline of a CCTV camera caught her eye. She glared at it. How dearly she would love to vaporise every CCTV camera on the planet. "Yeah, there's one on the door," she told Tosh. "Hang on a minute; I'll see if it's active."

One useful effect of being able to sense energy was that you could tell whether electronics were working or not. When Gwen moved under the camera and reached her hand up as close as she could get, she could feel the magnetic field it generated as a tingle on her skin. She grimaced. "It's active." She judged its angle with long practice. "It might not see me, but it will pick up the door opening. Damn. Maybe I should try an upper window… I could melt it open; that would be quiet."

"Might set off smoke detectors," objected Tosh. "Can you get one of the transmitters into the camera, or is it too high?"

Gwen snorted. "Too high — please." She bounded up the wall, holding herself in place by directing a rush of energy the other way. It occurred to her a little late that she was now generating an electric field herself. She hoped it wasn't enough to kill the transmitters or fancy lock-pick. "Where do I put it?"

"As close to the inner workings as you can get it."

Peering in, Gwen managed to slide the transmitter in the back, under the outer casing. "See if that works." She dropped back to the ground.

It was less than a minute before Tosh reported, "I'm in." And it was only a minute or so after that that she said, "All video feeds are now on loops. Looks like there are only cameras on the entrances. If there's anything inside, their feeds are on a different system."

"Ta," said Gwen, going to the door. Its lock was a simple deadbolt. Nothing she couldn't get through on her own, but she wanted to test her new gadget. "Suzie, how does the lock-pick work?"

"Just press it against the lock and hold down the big button on the side."

Gwen did. It was only five seconds before the lock clicked. She grinned. "I'm in. Now keep quiet a minute."

She eased the door silently open to be confronted with a cavernous blackness. Fighting the instinct to light herself up so she could see, she took a steadying breath and stepping into it.

Faerie eyes were better in darkness than mortal eyes and adjusted faster, but even with her vision honed to its sharpest, the interior of the warehouse was still murky to Gwen. She could see the great pillars that held up the roof, piles of boxes and crates, and some big lumpy shapes that looked like old military vehicles. She wove her way through the maze of stuff, every sense extended and quivering.

She could feel energy running through this place, which was strange for how dark it was. Something was definitely going on here, but no one had thought to turn on the lights? She changed her focus and searched for the little concentrations of heat that would indicate life forms. Nothing.

She bumped into something and winced as a metallic clatter sounded far too loud in the silence of the enormous room. She looked down. She'd knocked over a pry-bar that had been leaning against a crate. She picked it up. Might be useful.

After a little more sneaking around, she clambered her way quietly up a pile of crates for a better look at the room. Stuff was everywhere, and it wasn't well-organised. 

"Anything?" murmured Suzie in her ear.

"Not so far," Gwen whispered back. "It looks like this is where UNIT dumps out-of-date equipment. I've seen old computers, radios, vehicles, big clunky telephones, and even some bits of battered furniture. No weapons of any kind so far — not even bog-standard handguns."

"Weapons would be stored in a more secure facility than this," said Ianto. "And if this one is slated for decommissioning, they'll have moved any dangerous or valuable stuff out of it, anyway."

"There's nothing alive in here," said Gwen with conviction. "I'd be able to feel if there were. But there is _something_ — some machine. I can feel it running, feel it drawing energy."

"Any reason we shouldn't come in?" asked Owen.

"Oh, probably," said Gwen dryly. "This place gives me the creeps. And considering I'm usually the one giving creeps rather than getting them, that's saying something. But whatever it is, it's hiding itself really well."

"Or just not there right now," said Suzie. "They might have teleported out again to go after someone else's gadgets."

"In which case," said Ianto, "they could appear out of nowhere at any second, and we should be _very careful_."

"We are being very careful," complained Owen, and Gwen could hear movement over the comm as her teammates started for the warehouse. "Look, I've got my gun out and everything."

Gwen rolled her eyes. "Just watch it, all of you. I do not want to have to explain to Jack how you all got yourselves blown up."

There was a general chorus of "Yeah, yeah," from everyone but Ianto.

Sweet Mother Nature, it was like raising teenagers again. And Gwen did NOT miss those days.

***

Gwen stayed up on her pile of crates while the others filed in and started searching the place with lit torches. If they were going to take the risk of coming in here, then she was going to bloody well keep watch. She'd been serious when she'd said she didn't want to explain to Jack how she'd lost one or more of them.

Plus, if she was being honest, she'd got rather fond of the lot of them.

"Gwen, where are you?" asked Tosh over the comm.

Gwen lit herself for a moment, gleaming like a lighthouse in the darkness. "Here. I'm keeping an eye out." She vanished again.

"Ah. Great, thanks."

She watched their little lights bobbing around below her with a funny feeling of roll reversal. How often had she and her friends teased mortals with little bobbing lights, way back in her youth? How the world had changed, and yet, she thought wryly as she heard Owen trip over something and curse, how it stayed the same.

"Got something here," exclaimed Suzie. Gwen watched the other three little lights hurry over to join Suzie's.

"Looks like somebody's disemboweled a computer," said Owen.

"Not a computer," said Tosh. "Or not an Earth computer, anyway. It looks more like the remains of some sort of weapon to me."

"This is one of ours," said Ianto suddenly, and Gwen could just see him holding something up in front of his light. "We thought it was some sort of tool, like an alien screwdriver or something."

"For disassembling alien electronics, apparently," said Owen. "See anything else of ours?"

"Not so far."

Suzie's light wandered off again, disappearing behind a wall of crates — and this was an excellent example of why Gwen worried more about her than the others. There was something a little wild and dangerous about Suzie. Which was admittedly a bit rich coming from Gwen, but at least she had the experience and wisdom of ages to back her up.

"There's more here!" Suzie called. "Look at this — is this ours?"

The other lights followed her again, and Ianto's voice started cataloguing their missing items. Gwen, though, was no longer paying attention. She'd felt something, a tingle across her skin. She stood bolt upright, trying to pick out what had caused it. Was that a flicker of movement past the window in the back corner, or was she imagining it?

"Look at these plans!" Tosh was saying. "This is that Raizon Cannon Jack was talking about. They've been building one!"

"Hoh," sighed Owen. "Figured this place'd be trouble. It's straight out of a horror film."

"But where is it?" asked Suzie. "By these plans, it's got to be about three foot long—"

"Quiet, all of you!" hissed Gwen. "Something's in here." She was sure now. A shadow had moved. She'd heard a distant thump.

The others all went silent. "Where is it?" whispered Suzie.

"Northwest corner," whispered Gwen. "I'm going for a look. Stay where you are, get your weapons out, and keep quiet."

None of them protested, so she assumed they were following orders. Gwen vanished herself slipped down from her perch as quietly as she could manage. She padded around the piles of crates, her sense of direction clear even in the darkness. She reached out with all her senses, but still found nothing that felt like anything living. The hair on the back of her neck prickled.

Then it washed over her — a great wave of magnetic field, of moving energy. Something big was happening.

And then all the lights turned on.

Gwen's vision bleached, overwhelmed. Blinded, she ducked down against the crates, making herself as small and invisible as possible as she willed her eyes to adjust. But the shouts and cries of the others had her lurching to her feet again, squinting. She turned around and was immediately confronted with the thing that had been lurking in the northwest corner.

_Shit,_ she thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OF COURSE the team ends up disobeying Jack. I think it would actually be out of character for them if they didn't. XD
> 
> I googled the hell out of warehouses until I found one I liked to use as a basis for this. I live outside a small town on the edge of the forest -- what the hell do I know about warehouses? They do not feature in my natural habitat. Google is a wonderful, wonderful thing.
> 
> This chapter also required a little technobabble, which is not my strong point. I did the best I could. 
> 
> Oh, and "scath-lock" is a real term from ... I think Middle English? One of Robin Hood's Merry Men in the old stories, Will Scarlet -- some experts reckon his byname comes from "scath-lock" rather than the colour scarlet, because Will Scarlet was a burglar. And since faeries live for centuries plus, it just made sense to me that they'd hang on to old-fashioned terms while the rest of us moved on to "lock-breaker" or "lock-pick." : )


	4. Definitely a Bad Idea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack had said they were dangerous. Turned out Jack's definition of "dangerous" was everyone else's definition of "lock yourself in a bunker and then hide under your bed with all the covers stuffed in around you for good measure."

The team all had their guns out and ready, held alongside their flashlights. Suzie wasn't prepared to just sit there and wait for news; she wanted to know what was happening. She turned in a complete circle. "Which way's northwest?" she hissed to the others.

Owen and Tosh shrugged, but Ianto pointed. "I think it's that way."

Suzie started in that direction, but paused. "Is anyone else seeing a kind of shimmering?"

"Yeah," said Owen. "Definitely."

A shimmery patch of air hovered before them. They all shone their lights and pointed their guns at it. A shape started to coalesce within it.

"There's another," said Tosh, turning to aim at a second shimmery patch to her right.

Suzie looked around. Patches of air shimmered all around them. "What the hell—" she started to say.

And then the room flooded with light. They all squinted, blinked, and then pried their eyes open. They were surrounded by great metal figures. The silhouette was instantly recognisable: Cybermen.

With a thrill of horror, all four of them opened fire. It took them two or three bullets to realise it was useless. They were doing no more than making tiny dents and scrapes on the armour. The Cybermen didn't even seem to notice.

_"You will surrender or you will be deleted,"_ a computerised voice declared.

Suzie heard Ianto's breath coming in short gasps and spared him flicker of a glance. His eyes were wide, his face stark white. She remembered that he'd been at Canary Wharf. He'd been one of only twenty-seven survivors of a building that had contained hundreds of people. God knew what horrors he'd seen, how many friends he'd lost. For him, this had to be a nightmare come to life.

It wasn't far off that for the rest of them. They'd all seen the invasion and helped clean up the aftermath. It was the conversion units that had got to Suzie most — got to all of them most. Half of them had still had partially converted people in them. All dead, all torn to pieces with bits of metal shoved into them.

And now the Cybermen were back, and the team was surrounded, outnumbered two to one by creatures they could barely even dent. Suzie's first thought was to go down fighting anyway — but then she remembered Gwen.

Gwen — hope. If anything could take these bastards down…

"All right," said Suzie, bending over to place her gun and torch on the ground and raising her hands into the air. "We surrender."

The others all looked at her, Owen with consternation, Tosh afraid and confused, Ianto petrified and disbelieving. Suzie mouthed _Gwen_ at them. They all took her meaning and followed her example.

_"Our numbers are small,"_ said the same Cyberman who had spoken before. That was good news, at least, thought Suzie. _"You are compatible. You will be assimilated."_

Okay, not such good news. Out of the corner of her eye, Suzie saw Ianto's raised hands start to shake. She'd never seen so much as a crack in his composure before. She wished she still hadn't.

_Stall them,_ she thought, _stall them._ "Where did you come from? I thought all the Cybermen were sucked out of the world into the Void at the Battle of Canary Wharf."

_"That is true,"_ said the Cyberman. _"Our army entered this world through the Void. In doing so, they were contaminated by it. The Doctor used this to draw them back into the Void, which he then sealed. Only we few, built entirely of the materials of this world, escaped his purge."_

"And now you're trying to rebuild your army?" asked Suzie, reflecting that at least the Cybermen were the convenient type of monster who didn't see any problem with telling you their complete plan.

_"We do not have the materials. We seek the Doctor. With him, we can reopen the Void and recover our army."_

"Yeah, and the _million Daleks_ that were slaughtering you," growled Owen, eyes flicking about in search of escape.

_"It is of no matter. The Cybermen shall prevail. You will all be assimilated."_

From somewhere in the maze of crates, another Cyberman appeared, wheeling before it what Suzie instantly recognised as a conversion unit. It looked a bit cobbled together, but there was a table with straps and what looked like a children's mobile of knives and saws. Suzie felt like she was going to throw up.

_"Your human weakness will be wiped out. You will become like us."_

The Cybermen stomped forward. The team all skittered backward on sheer instinct. But their backs came up against the crates behind them. They had nowhere to run. The Cybermen reached out.

***

Ianto was sure he would wake up any second. He had to wake up. This couldn't be real. Please, god, it was just another dream. It was _over,_ it couldn't happen again…

If they grabbed him, Ianto knew he'd lose it. He'd scream and struggle, and they'd proclaim him incompatible, like they had so many of his colleagues — Sheila and Tom and Barry and Janet, god, so many. And then they'd drone, _"Delete, delete,"_ and his body would light up with electricity, and that would be the end…

The lights flickered. The Cybermen paused.

_"Sensors indicate powerful magnetic field interfering with electronics,"_ said what had to be the Cyberleader. _"Investigate source."_

Powerful magnetic field — yeah, there was only one thing that could be causing that. Ianto's visions of past and future faded. The here and now stood clear before him. And he knew who was coming.

High above them, a lightbulb exploded. The team all ducked as bits of glass rained down. Another light burst, then another, and another. The warehouse grew darker. Hands now up to shield his face rather than in surrender, Ianto peered up.

Around a pile of crates ten metres beyond the Cybermen, a figure came into view. Shadows clung to it like spider-webs. Its hair and clothing drifted away to join with darkness. In the dim light, its eyes were like two glowing coals. 

Gwen. Ianto's knees went weak with relief, even as every hair on his body stood on end. Never had he seen her looking less human.

_"Identify yourself,"_ demanded the Cyberleader.

Gwen said nothing.

_"Identify."_

She came closer.

_"Identify. Identify."_ When Gwen failed to respond, still striding closer, the Cybermen changed tactics. _"Delete! Delete!"_ They raised their arms and fired red bolts of energy. Ianto choked on a cry. He'd seen people killed by those bolts. They hit Gwen dead on. But she kept coming. She didn't even flinch.

_"Maximum deletion!"_ The Cyberleader raised its arm. A lightning bolt leapt to Gwen, connecting the two and filling the room with a diabolical crackling noise. Gwen's shadowy form jerked back and spasmed, and she shrieked. The shape of her body lit up and showed through the trailing shadows. It was like how the Cybermen had deleted Ianto's colleagues, only a hundred times more.

It seemed to go on forever, and then ended so suddenly Ianto's stomach dropped. Gwen slumped to the floor, disappearing into drifting scraps of shadow.

"Gwen!" Ianto cried, and he thought one or two of the others shouted too. But it didn't matter. They couldn't lose Gwen; she was their only—

Gwen rose back up out of the shadows. Her eyes glowed so bright it was hard to look at them. Inside her carapace of darkness, her body shone, like molten gold trying to escape through the cracks in a black iron mold. Her expression was twisted up into something hard to identify through the light, but Ianto was hazarding a guess at enraged. Her arm slashed out.

A bolt of liquid gold took the Cyberleader full in the chest. For one long moment, nothing happened, and then the Cyberleader's head exploded.

That was when Gwen let herself off any kind of leash.

With a scream that made the air shake, Gwen leapt forward. A wave of golden light swept the Cybermen away from the team. Liquid gold blew the conversion unit into a thousand pieces. The remaining lights exploded, plunging the room into darkness. Ianto and the others ducked and covered, taking shelter behind crates.

Gwen stood out like a beacon, a swirl of light with vaguely discernable human features. The remaining Cybermen fired on her from the shadows. _Stupid,_ thought Ianto. _All that does is give away your positions._ And, considering that Gwen shone brighter with every hit she took, possibly also powered her up.

Gwen was on them in a moment. She hit them with so much power she blew not only them, but also the crates behind them to smithereens. The stack of crates above thundered down. Ianto and the others darted away, taking shelter next to a big old military truck. Debris rained all through the warehouse.

No enemies remained standing, but Ianto could hear Cyber voices elsewhere in the building. Gwen turned her attention to the team.

Ianto froze like a rabbit. He couldn't help it, not with a thing like that looking at him. Even though he knew it was Gwen, even though he knew she wouldn't hurt him. All pretense of humanity had fallen away, and what was left was the bald power at the heart of her. 

"Get out of here!" she shouted to them, and even her voice didn't sound human. It had too many dimensions, somehow; there was too much of it. "Leave this to me — I'll take care of it." Her golden light flared and burned with intent. The air snapped with electricity. Heat washed over them.

Gwen's teammates needed no further encouragement. They shot out of there like jackrabbits.

"Which way?" shouted Tosh as they wove through maze of stuff.

"Left!" answered Ianto.

They saw the office through which they had entered the warehouse. The building shook, walls creaked. They ran faster, Owen throwing himself into the door to the office to open it. They were almost out. Another thunderous scream from Gwen rattled the windows. And then they were out.

They ran and ran, adrenalin and terror driving them on. They didn't stop until they were up on a bracken-covered hill a few hundred yards outside the warehouse. Suzie stumbled to her knees, gasping. Owen tumbled to the ground beside her, and Ianto bent double, hands on his knees. Tosh was the only one who managed to remain upright, though she was wheezing as badly as the rest of them. Her eyes were fixed on the warehouse behind them.

"Look!" she gasped.

The others picked themselves up enough to turn. The windows were flashing, dark shapes moving in the light.

"Shit," said Owen. "What do you s'pose will happen when she finds the one with the—?"

BOOM.

Light bleached their vision to white. Blindly, they threw themselves flat. A shockwave whipped over their skin, rustling the bracken. Their ears rang with the explosion, but faintly they could hear the crunch and clatter of a building falling apart. Debris crashed to the ground, some much too close.

Ianto raised his head and blinked against the hole burnt in his vision. The scene came into focus. The roof of the warehouse was mostly gone, and two of the walls had fallen outward. Pieces were still falling from the building and the sky. Ianto ducked instinctively as a bit of piping landed about five feet away.

"Jesus," hissed Owen, staring.

"Oh god," said Tosh. "Was that her, or was that the Cannon?"

"The Cannon would be capable of that level of destruction," said Suzie softly. "I don't know about Gwen. I wouldn't have thought so, but…"

_But that was before we saw her let it all loose,_ finished Ianto silently. But Gwen wasn't indestructible. She'd told him as much. He reached for his comm, knowing it was a longshot. "Gwen?"

No response.

"If anything would fry it, that would," said Tosh.

Flames flickered and grew in the wreckage. Ianto staggered forward and started down the hill.

"What are you doing?" demanded Owen.

"She's still in there," said Ianto hoarsely. "She might need help."

"Mate, did you _see_ her in there?" asked Owen, disbelieving. "She was bloody terrifying! What would she need with our help?"

"She's not a god, Owen!" shouted Ianto. "She can be hurt, and she can be killed. And if anything could…"

Owen said nothing, and Ianto heard the others starting down the hill after him. The ground before them was littered with bits of warehouse. Smoke billowed from the ruins, flames rising higher. Ianto approached at a run.

"Gwen!" he bellowed. "Gwen! Where are you?"

He skidded to a stop by a partially collapsed wall, looking for a way through. Owen and Suzie seized him by the shoulders and pulled him back as a section of the wall toppled, sending bricks tumbling to their feet.

"You can't go in there!" exclaimed Suzie. "It's too unstable."

"And _on fire,_ " added Owen.

Ianto growled in frustration and paced along the wall, looking for a way in. Owen went the other way, peering through gaps in the bricks.

"Gwen?" called Owen. "Are you in there?"

"Gwen! Gwen!" Tosh and Suzie called too, spreading out over the area.

Ianto looked back and forth, searching for something, anything. He saw a pile of brick and rubble near Tosh swell and rise. He saw the tubes on the head. "Tosh! Look out!"

Tosh whirled, her gun coming up in one smooth movement. A battered Cyberman reached for her, one arm smashed and unmoving by its side. Tosh fired two quick shots to no effect. She retreated backward.

_Crack._ With a flash of light, the Cyberman's head exploded. It dropped to its knees, then the ground. Behind it, inside the warehouse, Gwen was revealed. She looked mostly human again, except for the fact that her eyes still burned.

Well, and the fact that she was standing untouched in the middle of a fire. That was a nail in the coffin of normal.

"Gwen!" cried Tosh in relief, Ianto and the others dashing up beside her.

Gwen came toward them and made to hop over the stubby remnant of the wall. But she misjudged it, tripped and stumbled to the ground. Her eyes dimmed. She picked herself up, limbs shaking.

"Are you all right?" gasped Tosh. 

"I'll be fine," said Gwen, but she staggered. 

Ianto took her by the shoulder. "You're cold!" She was radiating cold the way normal people radiate heat.

"I'm tired," said Gwen, as if that explained it. "I got them all, though. They tried to get me with the Raizon Cannon, but I redirected the energy. Couldn't really control it, though. You're not hurt?" She looked them all over from head to foot. Tosh had a small cut dripping blood down the side of her face, and the rest of them had a few scrapes and bruises, but that was all.

"We're fine," said Suzie. "You're sure you got all the Cybermen? None teleported away?"

"Nah," said Gwen. "There were eight, and I killed eight. Unless some were off on a mission and didn't respond to the leader's demand for help, and I don't think Cybermen operate that way."

"They don't," said Ianto. "What about the Cannon?"

"Blew up when I tried — not entirely successfully — to redirect its energy back into it. It's pretty much atomised. I rescued some of the teleporter, though." She pulled a piece of mangled electronics from her pocket. Ianto stared on account of the fact that the piece was too big to go through the mouth of the pocket, never mind fit inside.

Tosh made a squeaky noise of delight and took it from her. While she was busy examining it, Suzie asked, "Is there anything else in there we should be rescuing before UNIT gets here?"

"Everything they took from Torchwood should have gone up in the explosion," said Ianto. He eyed the growing fire — the heat was getting uncomfortable. "And anything else will be going up shortly."

"Right, speaking of UNIT," said Owen, "let's get out of here before we get caught at the scene, shall we?"

They hustled back to the SUV, Ianto and Suzie keeping supporting hands on the stumbling Gwen. Their faerie fell asleep on Tosh's shoulder pretty much as soon as they pulled out onto the road. Ianto, on Gwen's other side, gently checked her pulse. Strong and steady, though her flesh was still weirdly cold.

Ianto's comm suddenly lit up, Jack's voice in his ear. "All right, kids, what the hell's this I hear about a massive explosion?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to admit, this entire story grew out of the fact that I wanted to blow up a warehouse. I have a thing for blowing up buildings. Er, in writing. 
> 
> But yeah, I had this little exchange between Ianto and Jack come to me -- it'll be in the next chapter -- in which they were clearly discussing the aftermath of blowing up a UNIT warehouse. And then I had to make a story to fit it.


	5. Picking up the Pieces

Scout the warehouse: that was what Jack had told them to do. He'd expected that Gwen would sneak in, gather information, and then give the rest of the team a report to pass on to him. He wouldn't have been surprised to hear that she'd gone ahead and engaged whoever had been raiding Torchwood, or that the others had followed her in and retrieved their stolen property while she kept the thieves busy.

But then his meeting with Major Probert was interrupted by reports of a huge explosion from the address of the warehouse. The major immediately dispatched some of his people to investigate and prepared to go himself.

"You're coming with me," he informed Jack in a tone that brooked no argument, moustache bristling. "I want to know everything you know about what was going on in there."

While UNIT was getting organised, Jack found a moment to make a call to Ianto. Ianto readily explained exactly how the operation went FUBAR. The place had been deserted; they'd slipped in and found what they'd been looking for; and then the Cybermen had teleported in.

"And then Gwen lost her temper." Ianto paused. "You know, sir, when you told us how dangerous faeries could be, I don't think any of us really grasped it."

Jack's stomach twisted. "What did she do?"

"She might have gone on a bit of a rampage. We're going to have a slight problem explaining to UNIT why there's a giant hole where their warehouse used to be."

Jack buried his face in one hand. "Anyone dead?"

"Only the Cybermen, sir."

Jack sighed. "UNIT is moving in. Are you out of there?"

"Well out, sir. Gwen's asleep; she seems to have spent herself. It's somewhat reassuring to know that she has limits, after that little display."

"Great. You leave anything at the scene UNIT might be able to use?"

"No, sir. Everything of note was pretty much vaporised in the Gwen-versus-Raizon Cannon encounter. A bit of the teleportation unit survived, but Gwen took that."

Jack allowed himself a small sigh of relief and hoped Ianto was right. "Good. Get back to the Hub, make sure Gwen's okay, and keep me updated. I'll join you as soon as I can. Then I want to full story."

"Of course, sir."

***

They tried to wake Gwen when they got back to the Hub, but she was reluctant to rouse. Rather than force her, Ianto scooped her up and carried her. She was a cold weight in his arms, and there were moments when he had to remind himself firmly that she wasn't dead.

They took her to the med bay, where Owen did scans. Her vitals all came within the normal human range, except for body temperature. It initially read as sub-zero, which made no sense until Owen managed to get a read on her internal temperature.

"Her internal body temperature is totally normal," he told the others. "The surface just _seems_ cold because she's sucking the heat out of her environment. But what's really weird is where that heat is going. Her temperature isn't going up, so she must be converting the heat into something else."

"So she's like a human transducer — an energy converter," realised Tosh, eyes going wide. "That would explain a lot. If she can control energy, change it from one form to another … that would account for a lot of what she can do, maybe even all of it."

Which was fascinating and all, but it didn't tell them how to treat her when she exhausted herself. In the end, they put a couple of portable heaters next to her bed and covered her with the warmest blankets they could find. Owen reckoned the blankets were pointless, but Tosh pointed out that if Gwen was turning heat into something else, she might make herself cold.

Then Jack showed up and they spent the next half-hour giving him a full mission report. It was two in the morning by that time, and Jack sent them all home with the promise that he'd keep an eye on Gwen.

Gwen didn't stir for another six hours after that. When Jack looked in on her, he found her leaning over the heaters and basking in their glow. She winced when she saw him. 

"I didn't mean to blow up the warehouse. Honest."

Jack smirked and perched himself on the edge of the bed next to hers. "Glad to hear it. I'd be forced to have words with you about nearly blowing up your teammates."

She grimaced. "That was much too close. I shouldn't have let them follow me in. But I didn't know what I was looking for, and I felt like I was treating them like children by keeping them out. And I honestly thought the place was empty; turns out Cybermen don't register as lifeforms on my radar. I'd never noticed that before." She sighed and rubbed her face. "Perhaps I didn't take the danger seriously enough. I've got a bit casual about danger over the years."

There was a moment when Jack could see the years in her eyes, and he remembered the incredible fact that this woman was older than he was, and by a significant margin. "Always be on your guard with an enemy who can teleport," he said. "And I think we've all got a bit casual about danger, 'cept maybe Ianto. That's all the more reason to be careful."

Gwen favoured him with a wry smile. "Ain't that the truth."

***

When Ianto arrived back at work the next day, he found he didn't want to go inside. Instead, he walked to the edge of Cardiff Bay and gripped the railing, breathing deep of the cool, briny air and staring out to sea. 

He hadn't slept at all that night. Every time he shut his eyes, he saw Cybermen, heard their pounding march, saw the blood and battle of Canary Wharf, heard the screams … saw Lisa. He'd sat up for the remainder of the night, drinking coffee and watching whatever he could find on television, trying to fend off the clamouring memories.

The images of Lisa wouldn't go. Neither would the echo of Gwen's words: _The conversion isn't totally stopped._

Lisa was turning into one of those things. This very minute, the programming was creeping in, synapse by synapse. She was becoming a monster, no matter how she tried to fight it. And right now, Ianto couldn't face her, couldn't even be in the same building with the conversion unit in which she lay.

He'd nearly ended up in one of those things last night. He was going to have nightmares about it. He knew because he was having them even now, wide awake though he was.

Tosh had seen his distress the night before, seen it through the mask that fooled Suzie and Owen and Jack. She had offered to keep him company, looking up at him with such warmth and compassion. Ianto had nearly taken her up on it — the two of them had an understanding, an unspoken agreement that neither was sexually interested in the other, which made their relationship simple and easy. But the fact was that a huge part of what was tearing at Ianto was Lisa, and if Ianto let Tosh come and comfort him, it was all going to come spilling out. And he couldn't … he just couldn't.

So he'd rebuffed her gently, telling her that what he really needed right then was to go and have a breakdown without witnesses — which was true. She'd smiled with understanding, squeezed his arm, and told him to call if he needed someone to talk him out of the darkness.

That was when it had dawned on Ianto that he'd made a friend.

And now he stood here, staring out to sea and trying to bring himself to turn and around and walk through the Tourist Office door.

"Ianto?"

He started and turned at Gwen's voice. She walked toward him, looking solid and healthy. A wave of relief swept through Ianto, and he started toward her. She opened her arms to welcome him, and before he'd quite registered what he was doing, he was wrapped in a warm embrace. Make that two friends. He squeezed her tightly, shutting his eyes and reminding himself that they'd all survived. 

When she felt his grip start to loosen, Gwen pulled back to stand with her hands on his arms and looked him over, eyes lingering on the bruise forming on his jaw from when he'd thrown himself to the ground during the explosion. "Are you all right?" she asked.

Ianto nearly lied and said he was fine, but he was sure Gwen would see through it. "Didn't sleep at all," he admitted. "Bad memories. What about you?" he returned. "You scared us last night when … well, several times, actually."

She smiled at him. "I'm fine. I just needed to recharge." She turned to look out to sea, and they both leaned against the railing and just felt the breeze for a minute. "Do you need to talk about it?" Gwen asked quietly. "And I'm going to add that I think the answer to that question is yes, whether you want it to be or not."

One corner of Ianto's mouth quirked wryly. She was probably right. He breathed deep, wondering if he really could bring himself to spill his guts. Well, if anyone would understand… But his mouth didn't want to open.

"I survived Canary Wharf by hiding." The words tumbled out abruptly. Ianto hadn't expected them. Okay, apparently he was doing this. "I was a coward. I hid while they were all dying."

Gwen cocked her head at him. "Did you have a way to fight the Cybermen?" she asked dispassionately.

"No. But I could have helped others to escape, been a distraction, something."

"And got yourself killed," she said flatly. "Were you trained for that sort of thing?"

"No," he mumbled. "I was a researcher."

"An office worker, in other words. An office worker in a building full of field agents and soldiers. And did you have a way out of that building?"

"…No. We were trapped." Somehow, the ambivalent attitude Gwen had adopted was helping. It didn't feel like she was just trying to comfort him. Her assessment felt blunt and honest as she picked his regrets apart.

"So you feel you ought to have made some grand heroic gesture that would have got you killed and wouldn't have been terribly likely to do anyone else much good," she summed up. "Not forgetting that if you had, Lisa would certainly be dead now, as might be a few other people that your actions might have saved directly or indirectly since joining Torchwood Three."

Ianto gave a ragged chuckle. "It sounds ridiculous when you put it like that."

She shrugged. "That's survivor's guilt: a bit ridiculous, but a natural reaction for any good person to have. Honestly, we'd have more to be concerned about you if you _didn't_ feel this way."

Ianto took a deep breath, and some of the weight he'd been carrying around for the last five long months lifted. But one weight still pressed down on him. "But what about Lisa?" His voice started to catch. "Did I save her, or did I just prolong her suffering? And what if she— What if she _does_ turn into—" His throat closed. He couldn't say it.

Gwen was looking at him, compassion starting to leak through that ambivalent mask.

Ianto managed to get his throat working again, if not his voice. "I can't," he said in a hoarse near-whisper. "I can't let her become that." He'd thought he couldn't live without her, the woman who'd pulled him out of the darkness of his youth and turned his life around. But letting sweet, caring Lisa turn into a Cyberman, into a pitiless monster … that was far worse. He had to stop it, even if it … even if it meant…

Oh god, no, he couldn't. He couldn't. …Could he?

Gwen closed a hand over his, a stubborn light in her eyes. "Whatever happens, whether we find a way to save her or not, you won't have to face it alone. All right?"

Staring down at his hands on the railing, Ianto swallowed back the urge to sob and nodded, unable to speak.

They stood there a while longer in silence, watching the ocean, until Ianto's emotions settled down. 

"We'll find out one way or the other soon," said Gwen, looking up into the sky.

***

Ianto found out how soon later that day. He was too tired to get much in the way of paperwork done, so he just made everyone coffee — pots and pots of it, they were all nearly as tired as he was — tidied the Hub, and then sat in his office and stared dully at CCTV feeds.

It was early afternoon when his sluggish brain finally picked up the odd thing in the Plass. He frowned at it for a minute, then went back through the video from earlier that day. Yup, it had been there for more than an hour. 

He was about to call Jack up when he decided that he'd prefer his boss didn't see all his empty coffee cups — he kept forgetting to take them with him when he went back for more — or the pile of papers with drool stains from when he'd fallen asleep at his desk just before lunch. The last thing he wanted now was to be sent home to be alone with his thoughts.

So instead of calling Jack up, Ianto went down. He found Jack, Tosh, and Suzie all with their heads together over the remains of the teleportation unit, talking excitedly. Owen was at his desk, regarding a pile of paperwork like it had personally offended him. And Gwen was lounging on the patch of moss under their tree, which was now a good fifteen feet tall and spreading its leafy branches up into the dangling cables of the Hub.

"Sir," called Ianto, heading to the main computer and bringing up the CCTV feed. "There's something I think you should see."

That was enough lure Jack away from the shiny technology, and he was at Ianto's shoulder in a moment. He'd caught everyone else's attention too, and they all craned their necks.

"Huh," said Jack. "Well that's anachronistic."

On the screen was a man, sitting on the steps at the edge of the Plass, bent over something. He wore an old-fashioned cap and an outfit that wouldn't have been out of place in the early twentieth century. Jack leaned in closer.

"Is he _whittling_?"

"I think so, sir," said Ianto. The man had a pile of little pale specks in front of him, likely wood shavings. "He's been there more than an hour. And he keeps glancing at the camera."

Suzie, Tosh, and Gwen came to join them, while Owen pulled up the same feed on his own computer. Gwen took one look and laughed aloud. "Oh, Rhys, you silly thing! So polite — hanging about outside until he's noticed rather than just swanning in and saying hello."

She received a collection of raised eyebrows. "Friend of yours?" said Jack.

"Old friend, former lover," said Gwen bluntly. "Well, I suppose you lot might even say former husband. Faeries are pretty much immortal, so we don't wed for life — we could never stand each other that long. But Rhys and I got along well, and we're still fond of each other." She turned to Jack. "Would you mind if he came in? He clearly already knows the place is here, and it's only his own good manners that are keeping him out."

Jack rolled his eyes skyward. "Damned faeries, making all our security seem like a figment of our imaginations. All right, bring him in. I'd like to meet this Rhys."

Gwen beamed and turned toward the door. As she did, she tossed Ianto a wink. It took his exhausted brain a second to make the connection.

Rhys was the healer.

***

Rhys was a pleasant, humorous fellow with a spooky twinkle in his eye. Ianto noted his rural Welsh accent as he greeted them all. The new faerie gazed up at the dark, distant ceiling of the Hub and whistled.

"So this is what you've been up to, Gwen. Couldn't settle into a nice, normal routine of playing tricks, partying, and dragon-racing — oh no. You had to go off and be an alien-hunter."

Gwen sniffed. "I prefer to think of us as gatekeepers, thank you."

"Gatekeepers! Oh, very posh." He grinned. "Never thought I'd see the day you'd go back to living in a city. How do you manage?"

Gwen shrugged and smiled. "Oh, it's a nice enough city — and anyway, it's Mine. I was born here."

"Not a lot of forest, though."

"We've got some parks."

"Not the same." He brightened. "Why don't we put one in? Wouldn't be that hard — stick the trees in between the buildings. Might tear up the roads a bit, but people could manage."

Gwen gave him a stern glare. "No."

"Just a little one! You'd hardly notice!" He had a definite note of teasing in his voice.

"No."

"What if we left the roads?"

"NO."

Rhys mimed a disappointed sigh and turned to the others. "Alas! She denies her heritage and insists on living in a smoky, smelly, car-infested hellhole. Whatever shall we do?"

"NOT take over the city with rampaging trees," said Gwen. "Somebody would notice."

Owen snorted. "You sure? This is Cardiff."

"Shut up, Owen."

Ianto decided that if nobody else here was going to show the visitor some manners, he'd better. "Can I offer you something to drink?" he asked Rhys.

"Oh aye! What've you got?"

"Ianto, don't give him caffeine," warned Gwen. "He gets twitchy. He'll _sing_."

Rhys bristled with affront. "Oi! There is nothing wrong with my singing voice!"

"I never said there was," said Gwen. "It's more you choice of material that's the problem."

He drew himself up. "Do you have some sort of grudge against the Lumberjack Song?"

"No, it was more my lover singing loudly and with gusto about wearing a bra and wishing he'd been a girlie that I objected to. It's just not sexy."

Rhys pointed at her. "That is discrimination against transgendered lumberjacks."

"No it isn't. It's discrimination against men who steal my bras and overstretch them so they don't fit me anymore."

He perked up with curiosity. "Who's been doing that?"

Gwen pressed her lips together and turned away (Ianto suspected to keep herself from laughing). "I am sworn to secrecy." Her voice was admirably level.

Jack rubbed his hands together. "Ooo, must be interesting then!"

Gwen stuck her tongue out at him. Ianto rolled his eyes.

"Well," said Rhys, "if I can't sing the Lumberjack Song, how about tavern songs?"

Gwen glared. "No."

"Romance songs?"

"No."

"Seussical the Musical?"

"Fuck no."

Ianto sighed deeply. "I'll just get some tea, then, shall I?"

"There's caffeine in tea, though, isn't there?" said Tosh.

"Yeah," said Owen, "but not enough to make someone sing Seussical the Musical."

"It would take me a bottle of Scotch to sing Seussical the Musical," said Suzie.

"Yeah, well," said Gwen, "caffeine can have a goofy effect on faeries."

Ianto stuck his head back into the room, because this was _relevant information_. "Should I not be giving it to you, then?"

She smiled sheepishly. "Probably not more than one cup every three hours."

"Noted."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was dealing with serious emotional issues, and then Rhys showed up and everything got silly. I'm not sorry.
> 
> I mentioned in my note on the last chapter that this entire story grew out of one short telephone exchange between Jack and Ianto, and here it is:  
>  _"And then Gwen lost her temper." Ianto paused. "You know, sir, when you told us how dangerous faeries could be, I don't think any of us really grasped it."_
> 
> _Jack's stomach twisted. "What did she do?"_
> 
> _"She might have gone on a bit of a rampage. We're going to have a slight problem explaining to UNIT why there's a giant hole where their warehouse used to be."_
> 
> _Jack buried his face in one hand. "Anyone dead?"_
> 
> _"Only the aliens, sir."_
> 
> That came to me, and then I had to come up with a story to suit it. It took me a while to settle on Cybermen as the aliens in question. It only seemed right, since I was dealing with the problem of Lisa in the same story. These particular Cybermen and their teleporter, by the way, come from the Doctor Who novella called ... _Made of Steel_ , I think?
> 
> And I'm pretty sure the reference to Seussical the Musical comes from _Second Star to the Right_ by SnarkyHunter on fanfiction.net. That is my favourite Doctor Who fanfic of all time. In it, the Doctor finds Ianto in the aftermath of "Doomsday" and takes him along as a companion. Their friendship is hilarious and touching, and then Martha fits into it beautifully. The fact that it's abandoned is a tragedy, in my opinion.
> 
> Anyhow, one more chapter to go!


	6. More Bitter than Sweet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to make sure it's clear, "mun" and "yur" are representations of the Welsh pronunciation of "man" and "here" respectively. I was sparing in dialect, but I wanted to drop in a few things, like the Welsh tendency to end a sentence in "like."

Rhys's attention had been completely distracted from the wonders of Torchwood's technology the second Gwen had brought out the motorised garden gnome. Tosh shook her head in amused despair at the pair of them.

"Do they all have names?" asked Rhys, watching Gobstopper whiz around.

"Yep," said Gwen. "The one on Ianto's desk is Madoc Barks, the one at the entrance in Earl Lee Bird, that one over there is Frank Enstein. The one on Tosh's desk is Marty Graw, and then there's Hugh Morris…"

"What about the one on my desk?" asked Jack.

"Oh, that's Oswald That Endswald."

"You're terrible," Suzie informed Gwen as Ianto came back in with a tray of cups. He pointedly set tea in front of Gwen and Rhys, and gave the rest of them coffee. Gwen grinned at him.

"Oh, she's a menace she is, this one," Rhys told them cheerfully. "I know better than to cross her, or next thing I know, she'll be after my crotch with a stapler."

Gwen threw up her hands. " _Once_. I did that _once_. And I wasn't going to staple _you_!"

"So you say. I find it hard to believe you couldn't come up with a better way to deal with a fly that won't close."

"It was a perfectly reasonable solution! I still don't see what your problem was. We were trying for a child. I had a vested interest in your crotch."

"Notice the past tense. _Had_."

"Oh, I could watch this all day," said Owen, leaning back in his chair with his coffee.

The talk turned from banter to story-telling. The team told the stories of their recent adventures, and Rhys told them about the time Gwen terrorised the industrialist who had cut down her favourite tree, the time she got arrested for impersonating a police officer—

("You were the one who suggested it," Gwen protested.

"Yeah, but I _didn't_ suggest trying it on an actual policeman."

"How was I supposed to know that's what he was?!"

"The uniform might have been a clue."

"It was a fancy-dress party!"

"Also the fact that he arrived in a squad car."

"This coming from the man who once accidentally got married to a horse."

"I thought we agreed to never speak of that again.")

—and the time they had to rescue their daughter Anwen from the centre of an army base.

"You have a daughter?" said Tosh, surprised. It was strange to think of Gwen as a mother, but as Tosh looked at her now, she could see it.

"Yep," said Rhys, smiling proudly. "Long since grown now, and off on her own, but we still keep an eye out for her, when we can. Parents — can't help ourselves."

When Gwen and Rhys started trading news about their daughter and her latest beau, Jack spoke up. 

"Why don't you two take some time to catch up? Maybe we can meet up for a drink later."

"Sounds good," said Gwen, leaping to her feet. She punched Rhys in the shoulder. "Come on, Rhys! There's something I want to show you."

She vanished and blew past Rhys, knocking his cap off. He caught it, chuckling, and vanished too. The two invisible faeries blew through the room in a great rush of wind, their laughter echoing off the high ceilings.

The wind rushed right over Ianto, and Gwen's voice whispered in his ear, "See you downstairs."

***

By the time Ianto managed to slip down, Gwen and Rhys were already standing over Lisa, and Rhys had his hand on Lisa's forehead, his eyes shut. Gwen saw Ianto and pressed a finger to her lips. Ianto approached silently, trying to resist the urge to hold his breath.

It was a few minutes of anxious waiting before Rhys withdrew his hand and rubbed his own forehead, blowing out a breath. Lisa opened her eyes.

"What do you think?" asked Gwen quietly.

He looked her in the eye. "What do _you_ think, love?"

"I think I only see three ways this could end. I was hoping you'd come up with a fourth."

Rhys shook his head. "No such luck. The level of purge she'd need would be more than enough to activate the baseline. So." He turned back to Lisa. "You've only got three options, and I'm sorry, but none of them are what you're going to want to hear."

Lisa shut her eyes and took a fortifying breath. "Just lay it out. They've got to be better than just lying here in pain."

Rhys winced. Ianto's stomach dropped. It looked to Ianto that Rhys wasn't so sure they were better. 

Rhys took off his cap and ran a hand through the long hair that tumbled free. "The first option is doing nothing. That would leave you a bit of time as yourself, but gradually you'd be taken over by the Cyber programming. Think of it as a cancer, like. Only instead of killing you, it would eventually turn you into a monster."

Lisa took a sharp little breath. A tear escaped one eye. "I don't like that option." Ianto took her hand and squeezed it. He felt sick.

"No, I don't either," agreed Rhys. "It's the worst, which is why I got it out of the way first. The second option … well, there's no point sugar-coating it. The second option is death. Better than becoming a monster, maybe better than lying around in pain, but…" He shook his head.

Ianto tightened his grip on Lisa's hand. "You must have something better than that," he growled.

Rhys looked him in the eye. His eyes were warm brown, but there was a flicker of something in them, an inner light like what showed in Gwen's eyes sometimes. "Whether or not it's better, only Lisa can judge, but aye. The third option is that I do what's necessary to purge Lisa's body of all foreign material."

His tone was so grim that Ianto felt a chill up his spine. "And what would be necessary?"

"Think of it as … like a computer that has a really nasty virus, and the only thing you can do is wipe the hard-drive and start fresh," said Rhys.

"What the heck do you know about computers?" Gwen muttered. Rhys quelled her with a look.

Lisa stared up at them with big, frightened eyes. "Wipe my hard-drive?"

"Yes," said Rhys gently. "And as with a computer, the likelihood is that doing that would wipe out your, like, memory and software too. It would be like having a major stroke: you'd have to learn to walk, talk, and chew all over again. Whether your personal memories would survive…" He grimaced. "Well, it would depend on whether the Cyber programming has got in there or not. The odds aren't good, I have to tell you."

Lisa's eyes fixed on the middle distance. "I wouldn't remember anything."

"Likely not," said Rhys, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Memory is a funny thing, and it isn't just stored in the brain. You'd have remnants, little bits and pieces, but for all intents and purposes, Lisa Hallett would die, and a new person would be left in her place."

Ianto shut his eyes and took a deep, shaky breath. Oh god… It was better than losing her to the Cybermen, it was better than having to kill her to stop it, but … only just.

No matter what happened, he was going to lose her. No matter what happened, Lisa was going to disappear, to be erased. 

"There's nothing else you can do?" he asked, voice quavering.

Rhys's eyes were deep and soulful. "I'm not even completely sure I can do _this_. Trying to get all the machinery out of her and keep all her systems working at once…" He looked at Lisa. "It's going to be touch and go for a while."

"I'll take the risk," said Lisa firmly.

"There's … something else," said Rhys heavily. "One more risk. Faeries have had children with mortals quite a few times down the ages, and there are a fair few faerie genes floating around the human population. If you have enough of those genes, the level of exposure to us you'd get during the purge would be more than enough to activate them and cause them to take over.

"Basically," said Rhys, shooting a nervous glance at Gwen, "if you have the equivalent of one faerie great-grandparent, this treatment would turn you."

Lisa's eyes went wide. "I'd become like you?" she asked, with a note of childlike wonder in her voice.

This time it was Gwen who answered, her voice low and somber. "You would, but you need to understand what we are. We're spirits of nature. The power of nature runs through us. And like nature, we're dangerous, unpredictable, and often unforgiving. People have feared us down the ages, and with good reason. If you became one of us, even if you weren't losing your memories you'd find yourself developing a thirst for revenge, and an urge to cause mischief and to be possessive and territorial. Your character would change, whether you liked it or not. And you'd find yourself trying to govern a deadly temper, a temper backed up by the power to wreak havoc. There's a reason we're usually the villains in the old stories."

Ianto shivered, thinking of what it would feel like to suddenly develop new, alarming personality traits, to find one's own self difficult to control. His self-control was how he dealt with the world. To lose it, and to have so much at stake if it were lost…

"But you live forever, don't you?" asked Lisa, and Ianto could hear the ragged edge of hope in her voice.

Gwen and Rhys looked at each other. "Not forever," said Rhys. "But long enough — until we lose the will to live, pretty much." 

"But think about what that would mean," said Gwen. "There aren't many faeries in the world, so the vast majority of the people in your life would be mortal. And you'd have to watch them age, wither … slip away from you. Over and over again, for hundreds and hundreds of years. And it never stops hurting."

"No," said Rhys softly. "It never ever does."

Lisa looked at Ianto, and her face twisted with the same grief he'd been facing for months. "I'd lose Ianto."

"Sooner or later," agreed Gwen. "And even before then… If you lose all your memories, Lisa, you're going to have to rebuild yourself from scratch, and your relationship with Ianto too. And if you turn faerie, you're never going to get what you have now back, because the person you build won't be the same Lisa. Without memories of humanity to hold back and temper a faerie nature, you'd … become something wild." 

"Faeries who've never been human," said Rhys, "or who don't remember being human, can be a bit … feral. They usually don't have much to do with human settlement at all, living far out in the woods and keeping the Old Ways."

"And even if you didn't become like that," said Gwen, eyes big and sad with the knowledge that she was picking their lives apart, "even if you did rebuild your relationship, it would have to be different. Faeries — we can't hold ourselves fully in check during sex. A reckless or very new faerie can do serious damage to a mortal partner, and even the best of us … well, I'm sure Jack has warned you."

"He said it can drive you mad," said Ianto woodenly. "He said it's addictive, and either you keep at it until you drop dead of exhaustion, or you leave it and then pine away for it."

"Well—" Rhys paused. "Slightly exaggerated, but basically accurate. Affairs between faeries and mortals are not safe."

A mad, desperate hope formed in Ianto's mind. "What if—" He broke off and tried again. "You said Lisa will turn into a faerie if she has enough faerie genetics. What about me? What if I have faerie genes? Could we both turn?"

Gwen and Rhys stared at him, and his stomach curled up into a little ball. He was pretty sure he knew the enormity of what he was asking. Faeries were suspicious and secretive, and they didn't take just anyone. And Ianto probably wasn't their type at all — an indoorsman who wore nice suits, kept himself well groomed, and did a lot of his work on computers. Nobody's idea of wild.

Rhys looked at Gwen. She stared at Ianto so intently that he started to wonder if she could see right into his soul. What was she looking for? What did she think of him?

"Could he?" asked Lisa when neither faerie said anything. "Could he turn? If you can take me, you can take him!"

"It's different," said Rhys quietly, "turning someone accidentally during the healing process, versus deliberately choosing to do it."

Gwen spoke abruptly. "I want you to think really, really carefully about whether you want to do this. You'd _change_ , Ianto. And it isn't just the big stuff; it's the little things. You might find the Hub too claustrophobic to be able to spend much time here. You might find all your lovely suits suddenly too smothering to wear. Your hair would grow out of control; you'd have to cut it every day to keep it as short as you do now. And you'd have a myriad of new and dangerous abilities slowly emerging, and you'd have to learn to control them, like a child learning to walk. You might become a danger to the others." She gestured up at the rest of the team, several floors above them.

Ianto's hands started to shake, so he clenched them. Gwen's eyes flicked down to them, and she gave him a knowing look. He was terrified, and she could tell.

"Can you really leave your humanity behind?" she asked.

Oddly, that question decided him. "You didn't." Both Gwen and Rhys blinked at him, so he elaborated. "It depends what you mean by humanity, but it seems to me that all the parts of it that matter — kindness, compassion, a sense of humour, all that — you've still got. I think … I think I can cope with all of the rest of it, so long as I've still got that." He hoped so, anyway.

Rhys grinned. "Well said, mun." He raised an eyebrow at Gwen. "What do you think, love? You know him better than I do."

Gwen sighed. "I'm still not convinced you know what you're signing up for, but all right. _But_ ," she pointed a stern finger at Ianto, "we're not trying anything until we know whether Lisa has turned."

"No," agreed Ianto with relief, both that Gwen had agreed and that he wouldn't have to start anything straightaway.

Gwen blew out a long, tired breath and rubbed her forehead. Ianto wondered whether faeries got headaches. She squared her shoulders and turned to Rhys. "Right, how are we doing this?"

"Can't do the whole procedure in yur," said Rhys, gesturing at the room. "It'll take days. I'll need to get her to my home surgery. But we'll have to stabilise her first." He turned to Lisa. "Need to get you breathing on your own." He went grim. "And then we'd better move fast. I'm worried that disconnecting you from the conversion unit might trigger something in the Cyber programming."

"Right," said Lisa, and she sounded afraid. Ianto went to hold her hand. Oh god, they were actually doing this. They were actually doing this, and he was going to lose her. And yes, he might get her back one day, but it wouldn't be the same, it would never be the same. Lisa looked up at him with the same realisation in her tear-filled eyes.

This was goodbye.

"We don't have to start straightaway," said Rhys quietly, looking from one of them to the other. He and Gwen didn't look too far from tears themselves. "We could come back tonight, give you some time."

"Please," said Ianto roughly, staring into Lisa's eyes.

"Come on," murmured Gwen, tugging Rhys by the arm. "Let's go and make some trouble upstairs, so they don't wonder too much about where we've got to."

The pair withdrew silently.

***

Ianto and Lisa sat together for hours, holding hands and reliving all their good memories. They wept for all their might-have-beens, and Lisa made Ianto promise that, if this didn't work out, if they didn't find their way back together, he would move on, fall in love again. He swore, and wept at the promise, pressing his face into Lisa's hands.

That was how Rhys and Gwen found them.

"Do you need more time?" asked Gwen softly.

Lisa buried her hand in Ianto's hair. "No, I'm ready."

Ianto gave her one last, lingering kiss and started to drag himself away, but Rhys stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

"You can stay, hold her hand," he said gently.

"Thanks," Ianto croaked.

He held her hand while Rhys and Gwen spread their fingers on Lisa's chest and lit her flesh up with healing light. He held her hand when the two faeries disconnected her from the machine and she jerked in pain. He held her hand as she gasped and took her first breath on her own. And he held her hand as she whispered goodbye and Rhys scooped her up to take her away, until at last he had to let go.

He turned away, half-blinded with tears, and found himself facing Gwen. She pulled him down to sit on the floor, enfolded him against her shoulder, and held him as he grieved.

***

When Ianto emerged from the basement, leaving Gwen to rip apart the conversion unit, he almost ran straight into Jack. Jack frowned at him, and for a moment Ianto almost panicked, thinking he'd found out after all.

"Ianto? What are you still doing here?" And then, getting a proper look at Ianto's face, "What's wrong?"

"Sorry." Ianto's voice didn't come out as steady as he'd meant it to. He swallowed and tried again. "It's just … Cybermen, bad memories."

Jack sucked in a breath. "Of course — I should have thought."

Ianto looked up into Jack's eyes, saw the look in them and knew he _understood_. Jack knew bad memories. Jack knew grief. 

"Did I ever tell you I lost my girlfriend that day?" Ianto said, suddenly needing Jack to know. "Lisa Hallett, her name was. I was going to marry her. I loved her so much…" His voice broke entirely, and the cough from his flu came back, aggravated by all the crying he'd been doing, but he clamped down on it and forged on. "I found her lying in one of the conversion units." He squeezed his eyes shut as the tears ran again.

Jack's warm hand cupped around Ianto's neck, just under his left ear. "You were desperate, weren't you, when you came looking for a job here?" he said softly. "You were running from the darkness."

Ianto nodded, eyes closed.

Jack pulled him into a hug and squeezed him gently. "Why don't you take the rest of your sick leave?" Jack said. "We can manage."

"Just had a few days off," Ianto objected thickly.

"So take a few more. I'm sure Gwen won't let you get bored."

Ianto gave a rough, wet chuckle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end of this one. Ianto and Lisa were just never going to have a happy ending. But there might be a chance for them yet, someday.
> 
> And I had to reference the stapler incident, seen in the episode Ghost Machine, and the idea of Gwen impersonating a police officer tickled me.


End file.
